Leo Potter kept his head down and nose almost in his book as he concentrated on remaining unnoticed. He was currently curled up in a nook in the Gryffindor common room reading, while he had every right to be there he was fairly sure that if the older students really noticed him they would stop gossiping about what they were talking about or worse send him on his way. He could just barely hear the whispered conversation from the other side of the room.

"I over heard Hagrid talking to Professor Flitwick, the big guy was distraught because a number of his precious monsters were turning up dead."

Another girl's voice nervously, "Are the centaurs alright?"

"He didn't mention them, but from what I could make out over his rambling I never want to go into the forest. I can't believe they would let those monsters so close to a school."

"Well there is a reason it's called the forbidden forest. So what did they find?"

"Some large spiders, acro something."

"Acromantula?"

"Yeah, that's what he said."

"Oh my."

"Yeah them and an Augurey."

"The spiders I can understand but an Irish phoenix?"

"It had its heart ripped out and it's neck broken. Same with the banshee he found."

"Something killed a banshee? What the hell, their screams are death, how the hell could something kill one?"

"I don't know, I'm just telling you what I heard."

"Anything else weird?"

"Well not quite as strange as a banshee but I overheard something about a Graphorn before I had to make myself scarce."

"What about it?"

"Not sure other than it was possibly on the list of dead creatures."

"That makes no sense, their hides are even better than dragon hide for resisting magic, what could kill one?"

"Don't know, maybe I didn't hear him right, anyways I'm going to get ready for tomorrow's class."

Leo frowned as the girls he had been eavesdropping on left, something was out hunting in the forbidden forest, something dangerous. He would have to warn his siblings and possibly his dad about it. Maybe his dad knew something or could possibly get more information out of Hagrid without arousing suspicions.

William glanced around the almost empty common room. He chuckled when he noticed Leo curled up in the corner with a book.

Leo glanced up at his friend as he wandered over, "So what do you think of the rumors of Snape becoming the new headmaster?"

"I can't believe they would let him become the head of the school. McGonagall deserves it more as the assistant headmistress."

"Yeah but she would have to give up being the head of Gryffindor house, something I don't think she is willing to do."

"I half expected Dumbledore to be at the feast." His voice dropped to a whisper, "Even though I know he's off learning magic from wizards in a different world. Speaking of which I'm still bitter that you didn't take me. I mean come on man, a world filled with hot girls and you left your best mate?"

Leo chuckled, "You'll just have to come next time. I'm sure we can talk Rose into opening another portal at some point."

"I guess I'll have to be especially nice to her. So what are you reading anyways?"

Leo held up the book, "Just a copy of one of the magical books from the pocket world."

"Have you managed to get anything to work?"

"A couple of tiny spells. Nothing earth shattering. But still the fact that I can do them without my wand is handy."

"Do you mind if I take a look?"

Leo shrugged and handed William the book, "Nah, knock yourself out. I'm off to warn the girls about dead monsters in the forbidden forest."

William blinked, "What? Where, when?"

"I overheard some girls chattering about overhearing Hagrid saying something about some dead monsters being found. I know we shouldn't believe everything we hear but it's worth warning them just incase."

"True, speaking of unbelievable things, Gabrielle should work on her tall tales."

"Oh?"

William chuckled, "Yeah, she was saying that you had some girls chained up in your room."

Leo blushed, "Hey that wasn't my fault, they're the ones that put the chains in and…"

"You mean it's true?"

"Well not exactly no, I mean… Raven was working on an art project and… look they were just having fun."

"What? Who's Raven, I know Dad and I had to spend some time at the Burrow but that's no excuse to not share the details."

Leo blushed slightly, "Well I couldn't very well talk about it on the train, not with everyone spread out. Raven's my camera girl. Anyways do you want the long boring story or do you want to see the picture?"

William blinked, "You have pictures?"

"Well I have a couple, one of which I'll even let you see. The rest of the girls made me promise not to show the pictures around." Leo reached into his pocket and pulled a small stack of photographs out of his pocket. He searched through them with a smile then handed one of them to his friend before pulling the rest back.

As William looked at the photo his eyes went wide in shock, "What is she?"

"That would be Kyara, she's a Kitsune, or fox girl. She's a bit of a sex fiend. I'll make sure I tell her what you think."

William blinked, "She's pretty."

Leo chuckled, "Yes, though a bit needy. And you have to be careful about her tail."

"Why's that?"

"She likes to wrap it around things or hit people in the face with it, depending on what's she's feeling." Leo chuckled as William couldn't take his eyes off the photo.

"I don't suppose I could have a copy?"

"Tell you what, you can write to her and ask her." Leo chuckled as William bolted for the stairs to get his quill and ink pot.

Trista couldn't help but press against Rose as Gabrielle shared another daring and more than slightly erotic story about her adventures in the pokegirl world. She was curled up with Rose on Gabrielle's bed at Hogwarts. Gabrielle was sitting on the windowsill idly playing with one of Lenora's feet while telling them stories of her adventures. If she was being honest she was a bit sad that she had had to go home before they tested out Rose's ability to make pocket worlds. Granted judging by the stories she would have been horribly embarrassed by some things but still, it sounded oddly more relaxing than spending time listening to stories from her family about the reunion that she'd missed out on.

Lenora shook her head, "There's no way, you'll pulling our chains aren't you?"

Gabrielle smiled, "Would I do that?"

Lenora nodded, "Yes."

"Well, what about a little bet?"

Lenora shook her head, "Not going to happen, maybe you are fibbing about that and maybe you aren't but I'm not going to bet against you."

"What you don't trust me?" Gabrielle sniffled a few times before breaking out into a fit of giggles.

"Yeah no, you're the girl that used to use invisibility to cheat at hide and seek."

Trista blinked, "Wait, you cheated at hide and go seek?"

Lenora grinned, "And after we banned her from using invisibility, she used her magical powers to sense the rest of us so that she could find us easier."

Rose grinned as she ran a hand over Trista's hip, "It was totally cheating."

Gabrielle snickered, "Oh please, don't let her sound all moral and stuff, we found out later that she used to teleport around the area to avoid people finding her."

Trista chuckled, "Is that true?"

Rose grinned, "Well maybe, but they could never prove it."

Lenora sighed, "No wonder the rest of us could never win. You were both horrible."

Rose shook her head, "As if we're the only ones that liked trouble. You and Lillian are a bunch of pranksters."

Lenora grinned, "Oh please, where is your proof?"

Rose grinned, "One of these days."

Gabrielle frowned as she looked over her shoulder out the window at the clear night, "It's going to snow soon."

Rose frowned, "I'm just glad that we don't have to take care of magical creatures until third year."

Trista sighed, "I don't know, it might be sort of fun learning about dangerous creatures. I mean I would ace the werewolf chapter."

Rose leaned in and planted a kiss on her cheek, "I think we all would."

"So you going to tell us any more stories?"

Gabrielle grinned, "Well it's not like you believe me anyways."

Rose rolled her eyes, "Well try us."

"Well there was that one night where I got to walk Sarah around naked on a leash, that was a great night. You should have been there, so much fun."

Rose blinked, "She never mentioned that."

"You know what the best part was?"

Trista shook her head, "What?"

"The way the air made her nipples stand out."

Lenora chuckled, "And on that note we should probably get some sleep."

Trista shook her head, "How am I supposed to get to sleep after that?"

Rose chuckled as she helped Trista to her feet and led her back to her bed, "I'm sure we'll find a way."

Lenora chuckled after Rose left, "So how's it feel to have your own bed back?"

Gabrielle shrugged, "Not sure, it would be a damn shame if I had to get used to sleeping all alone again."

Lenora smiled as she gently pulled her foot out of Gabrielle's grasp and slid under the covers. "Yeah a damn shame, now get in here."

Gabrielle chuckled as she slid off the windowsill and under the covers with Lenora. "So did you enjoy your vacation snuggling with Lillian?"

Lenora chuckled as she hit Gabrielle with a pillow, "Get some sleep perv."

"I'm not hearing any denials."

Lenora leaned against Gabrielle as she tried to drift off to sleep.

A number of the teachers were more than a little worried as the weeks stretched on without Dumbledore. Officially Professor McGonagall had been named to the temporary position of acting headmaster as Dumbledore was supposedly off on a health sabbatical, unofficially most of the staff thought he was off tracking down leads for combating Voldemort. The Daily Prophet had had a field day with that one. By the third week a sense of hopelessness and fear was crippling the hearts of most of the students, the fear was so bad as the weeks continued that the school had been checked repeatedly for signs of dementors, of course no sign of the creatures had been found. Even some of the normally ever brave Gryffindors were starting to feel the creeping fear. Every morning as the owls made their way into the great hall the fear would spike as people held their breath. Everyone muggle and pureblood alike were now worried that maybe the next letter from home would be news of a relative's death or dismemberment. It was perhaps worse for the Slytherins who were unused to worrying quite so much about random disappearances. Whole families were vanishing, most with the dark mark prominently displayed over the property, though some just looked to have up and left. Why just last week Pansy Parkinson's family home had been burned to the ground. The dark mark having been spotted by dozens of witnesses. Prefects were having to spend almost all of their free time patrolling the corridors just to keep fights from breaking out, as Gryffindors and Slytherins accused each side of offing their family members. A number of Slytherin students were pulled from class before vanishing with their families to parts unknown.

McGonagall knew the order was doing their best relocating as many of the parents of the muggle born as they could but they were helpless to save them all. There had already been several deaths, some just hours before they could get to them. The ministry was at its wits end dealing with the sheer number of reports of suspicious activity. Personally she was fairly sure at least half the complaints were coming from death eaters themselves in an attempt to cripple the ministry even more as they tried to solidify a weakening position. Apparently tensions were so high that the obliviators were having to work double shifts just to deal with the sheer number of magical accidents witnessed by muggles. According to Bill even the goblins were in an uproar about the number of wizards pulling their gold out of Gringotts. She just hoped the current conflict didn't rip the school apart. She was personally glad that Harry and his friends were doing a good job with his dueling club, it gave the students something to focus on other than the fear of losing loved ones.

Gabrielle sighed as she looked around the school at the half empty tables. She hadn't thought that removing a few dozen death eaters would cause such a reaction in the student body. It's not that she really cared about the death eaters but she felt a little bad that several of the students now had missing parents. Most of them weren't the nicest kids in the world though so she didn't feel too bad about things. Of course she was rather happy as that meant she would be able to bring several dozen pokegirls back from the pokegirl world. It wasn't like her Mother, Uncle Xander and Lexie weren't interviewing them to make sure they deserved to be banished to another world. It had started out as a simple plan, capture some of the people dad knew to be death eaters and use mind magic on them to get them to reveal the names and locations of other people in their organization. None of them had expected just how widespread the corruption had gone though. She was more than a little appalled at the number of connections the death eaters had in the ministry. It was probably because too many "pure" bloods were in positions of power even though they weren't the best wizards for the job. She had to force herself to smile as her friends chatted over breakfast. She wasn't even sure why she was here other than her mother's refusal to let her run around attacking death eaters during the school year. During the holidays she could come along on missions but according to her mother school was too important. She wanted to groan, she liked school but being years ahead meant most of her classes were a joke. At least the only class she loathed was history. She had to force herself every time she walked into that classroom and Binns started droning on and on about some stupid goblin rebellion that happened more than a hundred years ago to not reach out with her magic and rip the last of his life force away. Sadly that urge was getting a bit more common as the weeks passed.

Rose frowned, "What's got you snarling this morning?"

"Just thinking about the pointlessness of certain things."

"Anything you want to share?"

Gabrielle chuckled somewhat darkly, "Nah." She tossed a thought to Rose, 'At least not out loud. I'm just a bit annoyed that we have to waste our time in class with stuff we already know when we could be helping hunt down death eaters.'

'You know as well as I do that the parents aren't going to let us actually go on a real death eater hunt. At least not one where we don't have the advantage.'

"Pass the salt please."

Rose pointed at the salt and used a touch of magic to slide it across the table.

Gabrielle smiled, "Thanks." 'Yeah but that doesn't mean we can't view anything we get to do as practice.'

Everyone around the Gryffindor table gasped in shock as a large owl flew in with a midnight black envelope bearing the ministry's seal clutched in it's talons. Everyone held their breath as it flew over the various tables until it dropped the envelope right in the middle of Ron's empty plate. "There's got to be some mistake." Ron's hands trembled as he opened the letter and started reading.

"It is our sad duty to inform you of a tragic death in the Weasley family. One Percival Weasley is regrettably no longer with us. We extend our deepest regret for his loss and appreciation for his many years of devoted service.

Madame FancyPants

Bureau of Correspondence

Ministry of Magic."

Helen pulled her coat tighter against the rain with one hand as she kept her other hand wrapped tightly around her elemental rifle. "You know that last joke wasn't funny don't you?"

Xander had to stifle a chuckle, "Everyone's a critic."

"So when are you going to tell me why we are up on this roof freezing our asses off watching death eaters when we could be back home enjoying a nice roaring fire."

"You're the one that wanted to get away from the house." Xander smiled as he watched a drenched wizard across the street duck into the building they were watching. If he had to be soaked to the skin by the rain it was only fair that the death eaters experience some annoyance.

"Yeah well, shoot me if I don't enjoy a house filled with practical jokers."

"Best holiday ever. As for why we are up here today of all days, last week we caught Amycus Carrow. Real rat of a human by the way. Anyways he was very helpful in supplying information on the rest of the death eaters in a deal to save his life."

"So he gave up the dirt on this place? I'm guessing it's his house?"

"Yeah not much to look at is it? Anyways he swore an unbreakable vow to help us in exchange for his life."

"So other than information what did you get out of him?"

"Ever since Malfoy manor was lost to him as a base we were fairly sure that Voldeshit has been swapping locations every few days, Amycus was nice enough to confirm it. Being that he is trying to stay one step ahead of the ministry and that the number of loyal death eaters was growing smaller we knew it was just a matter of time for them to end up here."

"Okay so we know they are in there, how does that help us? There has to be dozens of wards on the place that would prevent people from interrupting them."

Xander chuckled, "Normally it wouldn't, the shear number of wards would give them enough time to portkey out. However we arranged for some work to be done to the house last week."

"Construction work?"

"Yep, some special home modifications."

"So that's where you've been this last week."

"Yeah, basically."

"So are you going to tell me what you did?"

"Nah, I would rather show you." Xander adjusted his ear muffs so they were over his ears then pulled a small muggle remote out of his pocket, "Oh and shoot any of the death eaters that make it outside."

Helen quickly jammed her own ear muffs over her ears as a crazily grinning Xander happily flipped the switch on his remote.

Voldemort was angry, not even torturing the night's muggle to death had done much to relieve his anger, it should have been a glorious time. Dumbledore was gone from Hogwarts, according to several of the children of his death eaters the amount of fear there was immense and growing. His army of giants were ready to squash Hogwarts at his command. He would have been more than happy to give that command if not for his recent setbacks. It had all started to go horribly wrong with Malfoy and that disastrous attempt on Potter's Mudblood bitch of a friend. He had lost so many loyal death eaters in a single swoop, it had shaken the resolve of the rest. Understandable perhaps but inconvenient none the less. The amount of lost death eaters would have been salvageable if they hadn't lost another group to yet another one of Malfoy's plots. If he ever found Malfoy he would kill him slowly. No the real reason he was in a rage was the dismembered corpse of Yaxley that had shown up in a dirty cardboard box at the last meeting. Not because he cared what happened to the guy but the work he had been doing at the ministry had been important. It looked like someone had ripped him limb from limb then ripped his heart out while he was still alive. The look dread frozen on the severed head's face had been rather impressive. Something or someone was hunting his death eaters. It was unthinkable but the evidence was overwhelming. He would have to personally track down this menace and destroy it.

Snape was more than a bit displeased to be playing host to Voldemort and the rest of the death eaters. Of course had he not, thanks to one of the Red Witch's spells, had his consciousness stuffed inside the body of Amycus Carrow he would have been killed on sight. Still he was rather annoyed that he had been forced to play nice and pour wine for Voldemort's sniveling group of idiots all night wearing Amycus's ugly face. Even grading the children's stupid papers was looking better than this farce. It was with great relief that he finally spotted his chance to end the torment. He smiled as he as discreetly as he could in a room filled with dark wizards cast the killing charm on Voldemort's snake. Sadly the little act of rebellion didn't go unnoticed though the person's shock allowed Snape enough time to twist the ring on his finger sending off a magical signal before he was slammed with body bind spells from all sides. He smiled as he felt his puppet's body being tossed in front of an enraged Voldemort. He was just happy that he couldn't feel the full impact of Voldemort's shouted crucio curse.

Voldemort couldn't believe, couldn't understand why one of his loyal death eaters would kill his snake, "Why?"

Snape twisted Amycus's face up into a smile, "Because you murdered a girl, and because as much as I hate myself for saying this, Potter is right you're a chicken shit."

Voldemort's response was lost as everything exploded in flame.

Xander grinned despite the ringing in his ears, he was just happy that he had put the ear muffs on. He snuck a peek over the wall he had hid behind. He smiled as he took in the devastation and the now mostly empty though smoking lot, "Best damn April fool's day ever."

Helen winced as she pulled at her own ear muffs, "What?"

"I said best damn explosion ever."

"You know Snape was inside right?"

Xander chuckled, "Details."