Sorry for the slow update... My computer had to be reformatted with chapters for ALL my fics ready to be uploaded... The computer is still gaga, and I'm using another one...
Night had fallen, and Diagon Alley was nearly deserted, unlike its usual bustling state in the daytime. Fred and George, as usual, were going over the day's accounts and counting the stocks.
"Here," Fred said, dumping a thick stack of parchment in front of George. "We need more Nosebleed Nougats and fake wands, we're nearly sold out."
George sighed. "I hate paperwork." He leant back in his chair. "And where on earth has that bird gone to? Jet's been missing for at least a week now. Do you think anything's happened to him?" They hadn't seen their owl ever since they had sent him off delivering their latest orders for stock.
"You know how Jet likes to slack off, he just had better be here the next time we need him. I don't think there's anything to worry about, people rarely kidnap owls, do they?" Fred glanced down at the mess of parchment spread out in front of his twin. "Are you nearly done? I'm hungry."
"Almost... I think. I just can't get it to tally... I'm hungry too, why don't you go and get something for supper first?"
"Sure..." Fred went back downstairs into the shop. Through the display windows, the streets of Diagon Alley seemed to be flickering in an orange light. The moment he stepped outside, something small and feathery flew right into him.
"Jet!" Fred struggled a while with their frantically hooting owl. When he finally managed to get the owl to settle down quietly, Fred caught distinct sounds of footsteps coming towards him. His hand automatically moved towards his wand, ready to attack if they were Death Eaters, but when he saw what it was, his hand froze on his wand.
Two strange creatures, one white, one black, were leading a group of equally odd looking creatures down the street. The white and black creatures looked almost similar, with long, flapping wings and small bodies. Fred stared for a long moment at the both of them, and they stared back at him.
Finally finding his voice, Fred gave a frantic yell to his twin. "George! You had better come and see this, George! GEORGE!"
&
Hermione finally finished selecting her books and carried them over to the table where Harry and Ron already were, struggling with their homework. The two boys looked up and gaped at the huge stack of books in her arms.
"You've finished Snape's essay, haven't you?" Ron asked with a sigh.
"Obviously," Hermione said in a dignified way. She set down the books onto the table. "I just wanted to get these for some light reading, for a change. Are you two anywhere near finishing?"
"No," both Harry and Ron said at the same time. "Obviously," Ron added.
"I'm not going to help you," Hermione said sternly, as Harry raised an eyebrow. "Go find the books yourself."
Harry sighed, but got up. He wandered over to the section on Defence, and started to scan through all the book titles. Finally he found a thick and heavy one that he thought might be useful, but had a hard time tugging it out of shelf. Just as he managed to pull the book off, he came face to face with someone very familiar: Cho Chang.
Cho's face hardened slightly, and Harry scowled back. Firmly turning his back on her, Harry stalked off back to his table, slamming the book down with completely unecessary force.
"What's up, mate?" Ron asked, startled.
Hermione glanced over her shoulder to see a tall, dark-haired girl striding off towards the Restricted Section. "Oh," she said simply.
Feeling distinctly unhappy, Harry had a hard time concentrating on his work. His anger increased when someone else appeared at the table: Draco Malfoy.
"What do you want?" Harry snapped, irritated. One of the Slytherin Japanese exchange students, Kouichi, was lurking behind Malfoy looking rather wary.
"The Dark Lord's up to something," Malfoy said simply.
"What?" Harry snapped again. "Why would you be telling me that?"
"But this time, I want you three to stay out of it."
"Why?" Harry stared suspiciously at him. Malfoy wasn't acting like his real self at all.
"The Dark Lord's planning something too dangerous even for you three to try to stop him. Let me take care of it, this isn't up to you, you won't be able to do anything here." Malfoy glanced around and lowered his voice. "You had better stay out of this. There will be others who are more expertised in this to stop him."
"But I thought you were on his side," Ron said suspiciously.
"This time I'm not, I don't approve of what he's doing. Remember my warning: Don't mess in this or you'll find yourself in more trouble than you can handle." Malfoy turned and stalked off without a backwards glance. However, Kouichi approached the table uncertainly.
"Er... Have you guys seen my brother or Takuya anywhere? I'm looking for them, it's important."
"Well, they were saying something about going down by the lake to study there," Hermione said.
"Thanks, and seriously..." Kouichi hesitated. "Take Draco's warning. You should stay out of this."
Kouichi caught up with Draco outside the library. "Are you so sure that Voldemort's behind this?"
"It's not my opinion, more rather it's my team leaders opinion," Draco said quietly. "The letter that I got the other day was from the Digidestinied who went to the Digiworld with me. Gennai came to them and said that a Dark wizard was causing chaos in the Digiworld. Who else would it be but the Dark Lord? Death Eaters have been seen wherever Digimon have been appearing, it can't be a coincidence."
"You're right," Kouichi said at last. "But who's Gennai?"
"You don't know Gennai?"
"No I don't."
"Then who guided your Digidestinied team?"
"Basically it was Ophanimon, one of the three angel Digimon." Kouichi frowned at the puzzled look on Draco's face. "You've never heard of the three angel Digimon?"
"No."
They stared at each other.
&
"Where on earth is Kouichi? He's late." Takuya grumpily stared all around him. "He asks us to gather by the lake for something urgent, then shows up late. Doesn't make it seem so urgent after all..." There were many other groups of students wandering about the courtyard, and the nearest group to them was the Fire Academy students, all of whom were chatting noisily.
"Be patient," Zoe said, although she too was looking all around them for Kouichi. "He'll show."
"He had better," Takuya scowled.
"He will," Kouji said quietly.
"If Kouji says he will, then he will." Tommy sat down on the grass. The others followed suit. Sure enough, barely a minute later, a familiar figure came running over to them, Slytherin robes billowing out behind him. Kouichi stopped right in front of them and dropped to the ground, panting hard.
"Sorry," he gasped out.
"Catch your breath, it doesn't matter," Zoe said, shooting Takuya a warning look. "What was it you wanted to tell us?"
Kouichi's breathing slowed and he started to look very uncertain.
"What is it?" Tommy asked eagerly.
"Well... It's about..." Kouichi faltered. "Erm... Actually... It's about the Digiworld."
"What? Is the Digiworld in trouble?" Takuya almost yelled. Kouji clapped a hand over Takuya's mouth to keep him silent, and for a while the two of them had a silent fistfight on the grass.
"No, nothing like that. Actually it is in trouble, but that wasn't what I wanted to tell you..." Kouichi knew he was sounding extremely lame, and he scratched his head uncertainly. "I mean... Has it ever occured to you guys that some other people might have been to the Digiworld, besides us?"
"No," Takuya said promptly.
Zoe rolled her eyes. "Now that you mention it, there is a possibility. Most of the Digimon we met back then knew about the human world, and that we were human children. That wouldn't have been possible if they hadn't heard of our world. There could have been other children before us. Why suddenly this topic now?"
"You've found some others who went too, haven't you?" Kouji said quietly.
Kouichi caught Kouji's eyes, feeling immensely thankful. "Yeah."
"Who?" J.P asked excitedly. "Anyone we know?"
"Erm... Yeah."
"Who?!" Takuya practically shouted with excitement.
"Well... Er..." Kouichi was at a loss for words. "As a matter of fact, I found two other Digidestinied teams."
"Quit stalling," Takuya said, almost bouncing up and down. "Who?"
"One team is led by Davis Motomiya and Ken Ichijouji... And the other by Ron's older brothers, Fred and George Weasley."
It took quite a long time for the statement to sink in, and once it did, everyone slowly turned to stare at the Fire Academy students. The Fire Academy students stared back, and Kouichi and Ken looked at each other helplessly.
&
There was something extremely odd going on between the Japanese exchange students, Hermione noticed. Normally, during dinner, all of them would be chatting cheerfully, but today, all of them were talking intensely in hushed whispers. Harry was still obsessing over what Malfoy had said to notice anything suspicious, while Ron wasn't helping by giving wilder and wilder guesses as to why Malfoy was acting that way.
"I guess he's just gone bonkers," Ron said at last, stabbing at his food.
"I hate him," Harry said for the thousandth time.
"I get the feeling, man," Ron said sympathetically. "But why would he say something like that? It's not like him to want to stand up against You-Know-Who, we all know how much of a coward he is."
"He could be lying, so that we wouldn't want to try to find out what's going on." Harry lowered his voice. "But, seriously, the newspapers haven't been reporting anything at all about Voldemort. It's not like him to not do anything, especially since the Ministry has acknowledged that he's returned."
"I agree, the lack of news is disturbing." Hermione paused thoughtfully. "But then why would Malfoy say that he's up to something?"
Harry sighed. "Why on earth are we getting so worked up over that jerk?"
"Because I get the feeling that he's telling the truth," Hermione said quietly.
A few seats away, the topic of the mysteriously appearing Digimon had been discussed so thoroughly by Kouji, T.K and Kari that they had no more ideas, and had started comparing details of their adventures in the Digiworld.
"It doesn't sound like we've been to the same Digiworld," Kari said in a whisper. "I just don't get why you guys didn't have partner Digimon, like us."
"But how can there be moe than one Digiworld?" T.K whispered. "Kouji, when and how did you guys go to the Digiworld?"
Kouji frowned. "It was five years ago, I was eleven at that time. All of us, except for Kouichi, received some sort of text message on our cells telling us to get to the train station in Shibuya, and take the elevator. The elevator came out in a strange basement-like part of the station, where Trailmon took us to the Digiworld."
"We've never even heard of Trailmon," Kari muttered. "We got there by opening the Port through a computer, and we can choose to go back whenever we want to. But we haven't been going back regularly of late, we've just been so busy with school."
"Speaking of going back there," T.K said suddenly, "Why don't we try to go back there and see what's going on?"
"I'm sure Tai and the others would have enough sense to try that." Kari sighed. "What time is it already?"
"Nearly seven, I guess we had better start moving soon." Kouji glanced at Takuya, who was still chatting excitedly with Davis. The Slytherin Digidestinied had arranged for a meeting at the library at seven, and the Japanese Digidestinied were to meet them there. It was strange to actually be back in action after so long of thinking that the Digiworld was perfectly fine.
Over at the Hufflepuff table, Yolei, Zoe, Cody and J.P had already finished their dinner and were moving to the stairs. Kouji stood up, and so did T.K and Kari. There was no sign of Kouichi or Ken at the Slytherin table. Takuya and Davis followed suit. They were unusually quiet as they went up the stairs, all keeping to their own thoughts.
The library was rather empty, with most the students still at dinner. Kouji soon spotted Kouichi at one of the larger tables, accompanied by Ken Ichijouji, the Hufflepuff Digidestinied and… Draco Malfoy?
"So you three are the ones responsible for this?" Takuya said, sitting down opposite the Slytherins. "You're Draco Malfoy, aren't you? I'm Takuya Kanbara."
"I know who you are, since you're a Gryffindor and I'm a Slytherin, it's best that I know the names of all my enemies," Draco said wryly.
"He's joking," Kouichi said quickly. "Is everyone here?"
"Yep, from our team," Davis put in excitedly. "Yours?" he asked, turning to Takuya.
"All here." Takuya glanced around for confirmation. "Yeah, all here."
"Do you think Madam Pince will get suspicious and chuck us out or something?" Zoe said suddenly, glancing around. The strict librarian was busy going through a huge stack of books on her desk, although every now and then she would look up and glare at everyone in irritation that they were touching her precious books.
"Well, it could just be any random study group," Tommy suggested.
"Only that none of us are holding any books with us," Kari pointed out.
"I think it would be okay if we just keep our voices down," Yolei said. "Besides, we do have to be quiet about this, anyway."
"Hey… I'm sorry, am I late?"
Everyone looked around to see a tall girl approaching the table. Draco Malfoy stood up. "Don't worry, we haven't even started yet." He turned to face the table. "Everyone, this is Cho Chang. She's the only one remaining at Hogwarts from my team."
&
"Guys, aren't you going to get sick from all that ice cream?" Fred sighed in amusement as he watched the Digimon practically guzzling tub after tub of ice cream. "That's at least thirty Galleons worth of ice cream you know."
"But it's nice. Tastes like… Snow mixed with sugar."
"And artificial colouring."
"It's artificial? Yucks!"
"It's not artificial, Lopmon." George stared at the five Digimon, absent mindedly stroking his partner. "I think I'm going to be sick just watching you guys inhale all that ice cream."
"We're not inhaling the ice cream, we're eating it."
"Shut up, Kudamon."
"How I miss the old days," Fred sighed, leaning back in his chair. The Digimon were all so excited that they had made a complete mess of the twins' bedroom. Not that they minded, since it was already in a mess to begin with, but several of their customers had complained about odd bangs and noises coming from upstairs, which George had waved off as their "experimental team at work."
"I wanna see Cho," a small red Digimon complained, clutching at a tub of strawberry ice cream. The Digimon looked like a cross between a fox and a lion cub.
"She's at school, and can't get away now, Coronamon," George explained.
"Draco's at school too?" Kudamon piped up.
"Yeah." Fred shook his head as his partner Digimon, Terriermon, offered him a pawful of ice cream. "No thanks, I'm almost frozen just looking at all those empty tubs. And when's that guy coming anyway? He's late."
Right away, as if on cue, Gotsumon, who had been sitting closest to the door, sprang up. "He's here!" Gotsumon shouted out. A moment later, the doorbell rang. Gotsumon crashed down the stairs, followed by a more calm George, with Lopmon still perched on his head.
"Open the door, open the door!" Gotsumon shouted, bouncing up and down, knocking down a stack of empty boxes by the door. George grinned and pointed his wand at the doorknob. The lock clicked and the door swung open.
"Lee Jordan!"
Kudamon and Coronamon are from Digimon Battle Squad, which I don't watch so don't ask. I wanted Cho to have Swanmon, but Swanmon's the Armour form of Gatomon with the Crest of Love, so too bad.
Ken