Chapter Eight: The Plot Thickens
The weeks went by, and still the five preteens had not found anything on Nicholas Flamel. Now it was nearing finals week, and while Harry, Hermione, Riley, and Tony were studying, Ron was going through his chocolate frog card collection. Hedwig swooped down and landed on the stack of books in front of Harry, causing him to look up at her.
"Hi, Hedwig." he greeted, smiling.
Hedwig returned the greeting with a screech, as Harry looked back down at the book he was reading from. Tony, on the other hand, folded his arms together on the table, and buried his head into them, groaning.
"That does it, I'm staying away from books during summer break." the Slytherin student declared. "I'm going to have gray hair before I'm thirteen at this rate."
"Less complaining, more studying." Hermione told him.
Tony had been allowed to sit with his Gryffindor friends since they had returned from winter break, but only to study and do school work together. Several of the other Gryffindors were alright with it because of Tony's good deeds in the past, so they gave him no grief about it. Hermione watched as Ron continued to go through his collection, and finally spoke her peace about it.
"Look at you, playing with your cards!" she scolded her Housemate. "Pathetic!"
"Here we go again." grunted Riley.
"We've got final exams coming up soon."
Ron looked up at her, annoyed.
"I'm ready!" he shot back. "Ask me any question!"
Harry, Riley, and Tony looked at each other, smiling, as if they couldn't wait to see how this would turn out.
"Alright, what are the three most crucial ingredients in a Forgetfulness Potion?" challenged Hermione.
Ron looked down at his cards, defeated.
"I forgot." the redheaded boy grumbled.
"And what may I ask do you plan to do if this comes up in the final exam?" asked his Housemate.
"Copy off you!"
"No, you won't! Besides, according to Prof. McGonagall, we're to be given special quills bewitched with an anti-cheating spell."
Tony looked at Harry and Ron, grinning.
"And I believe that would be checkmate." he commented.
Ron glared at him, and the other two males beside them as they laughed, making them shut up, before looking back at Hermione.
"That's insulting!" he complained, outraged. "It's as if they don't trust us!"
"Ron, what was your answer to Hermione's question again?" asked Riley.
"Shut up, Riley. Dumbledore again!"
The others watched as he threw down another card, and then they looked up slowly upon hearing thumping noises, followed by their schoolmates' laughter. The students watched as Neville hopped down the Great Hall, his legs glued together by an unseen force.
"Leg-Locker Curse." Ron observed, watching the unlucky boy hop forward.
It didn't take Harry long at all to figure out who was behind the curse placed on their dormmate.
"Malfoy." he guessed.
They and their friends watched as the accident prone boy hopped towards them, then stood in place, trying to keep himself balanced.
"You have got to start standing up to people, Neville." Ron told him.
"I can barely stand at all!" said Neville.
"I could always-" Tony began.
"No." Hermione and Riley spoke at the same time.
"What?"
"Practical jokes won't make Malfoy back off." said Hermione.
Tony folded his arms across his chest, fuming, while Seamus rose to his feet, his wand held out.
"I'll do the countercurse!" he offered, eagerly.
Instantly, Neville, Ron, Riley, and Tony looked very alarmed. Seamus had a way with making things blow up in his face when using magic.
"No, that's all I need!" yelped Neville. "You to set my bloody kneecaps on fire!"
Seamus threw down his wand in anger, as if insulted.
"I don't appreciate the insinuation, Longbottom!" he snapped. "Besides, if anyone cares to notice, my eyebrows have completely grown back!" he added, pointing at his eyebrows.
He stormed off away from them, while Hermione caught sight of the bald spot on the back of his head, and tried her hardest not to laugh. Riley and Tony had seen this, too, and looked at each other.
"Should we tell him?" asked Tony.
"He'll find out on his own." replied Riley.
Meanwhile, Harry, who had been reading the card that Ron had thrown down onto the table moments ago, alerted his friends to something he had found.
"I found him!" he exclaimed, nudging Ron on the arm.
Ron took the card from him and began to read it aloud.
"'Dumbledore's particularly famous for things he has defeated the Dark Wizard Grindelwald in 1945,'" he read.
"Go on." Harry said, eagerly.
"'For the discovery of the twelve uses of dragon blood, and his work on alchemy with his partner Nicholas Flamel'!"
"So all we had to do was look at a card from a piece of candy?" asked Tony.
"I knew the name sounded familiar!" said Harry. "I read it on the train that day!"
Hermione quickly gathered up her stuff, and told the other four to follow her. The three Gryffindors and the Slytherin quickly got to their feet, and gathered their belongings, then chased after her down the hall.
"Hey, wait! Where are you going?!" Neville asked, turning to face where they were heading. "What about the countercurse?!"
The boy then tumbled over, causing the others around him to laugh. A pair of running footsteps echoed into the Great Hall as Riley rushed back towards him.
"Sorry, Neville." he apologized, as he held out his wand.
He made three counterclockwise circles with his wand, then pointed it at Neville. Neville sighed with relief as his legs were freed from the curse, and watched as his fellow Gryffindor take off again.
"Thanks!" he called.
"I had you two looking in the wrong section!" exclaimed Hermione.
She strode towards the table where her four friends were seated, a heavy book in her hands.
"How could I have been so stupid?!" the female student wondered aloud.
Her four friends all jumped as the book was set onto the wood with a heavy thud, then Hermione casually sat down across from Harry, Ron, and Riley beside Tony, and opened the book to skim through the pages.
"I checked this out weeks ago for a bit of light reading." she explained.
The four boys looked at the book in surprise, and Ron spoke the words that his friends were thinking.
"This is light?" he asked, stunned.
"In Hermione's point of view, maybe." replied Riley.
Hermione paused in her skimming to glare at each of them for a moment, then finally stopped at one page, and started scanning for what she was looking for. Then suddenly she let out a gasp.
"Of course! Here it is!" she announced, excitedly. "Nicholas Flamel is the only known maker of the Sorcerer's Stone."
"The what?" Harry and Ron asked, simultaneously.
"Honestly, don't you two read?"
Hermione looked at the page, and started to read what was on it.
"'The Sorcerer's Stone is a legendary substance with astonishing powers,'" she read. "'It'll transform any metal into pure gold, and produce the Elixir of Life, which will make the drinker immortal.'"
"'Immortal'?" Ron repeated.
"It means you'll never die."
"I know what it means!"
Harry and Tony quickly shushed them, allowing the sole female of the group to continue reading.
"'The only Stone currently in existence belongs to Mr. Nicholas Flamel, the noted alchemist who last year celebrated his 665th birthday.'" she concluded.
"'665th'." Riley breathed, stunned. "I lived for that long, I would've been driven bonkers."
"The point is that that's what Fluffy's guarding on the Third Floor. That's what's under the trap door. The Sorcerer's Stone."
The five students looked at one another in silence for a long moment, then Riley dared to ask the question that was on his mind for a while now.
"Okay, so, now that we know about this thing, what do we do now?" he asked.
"I don't know." replied Hermione. "Just keep this information to yourselves."
"Okay, my turn to ask a question, why would anyone create something so powerful?" asked Tony.
"That's honestly a good question." agreed Ron.
Later at night, that very same day, Riley was asleep on his bed, with Bubba sleeping on his stomach, and a Justice League comic book gripped in one arm. Suddenly, Prof. McGonagall burst into the room, looked around, then stormed over to the boy's bedside, shaking his shoulder.
"Mr. Cross! Wake up, Mr. Cross!" she barked.
The comic-addicted child bolted up into a sitting position, causing Bubba to jump off of him in shock. Riley moaned tiredly as he rubbed at his closed eyelids, apparently having been nearly dead asleep.
"I'm awake." he grumbled, sleepily. "What time is it?"
"It's past midnight, Cross," Prof. McGonagall told him, sharply. "Where are Potter, Weasley, and Granger?"
"Sleeping, ma'am."
"I don't see them!"
"They're right over..."
Riley turned to point at Harry's and Ron's beds, only to find they were empty.
"...there." he finished, in a weak whisper.
"Go back to sleep, Mr. Cross." Prof. McGonagall ordered, as she hurried for the door. "Sorry for disturbing you."
She left quickly, leaving the half-awake student behind to stare blankly ahead for a moment. Riley then looked at Bubba, who was licking his paw for a moment to clean his face, and shook his head.
"Oh, boy." he muttered.
The dark-haired boy stood up, grabbed a stack of his comics, and his Walkman and some cassette tapes, then marched to the common room to wait for his friends. After what felt like ages, Riley fell asleep once again, while listening to his music player, then suddenly felt someone shaking his shoulder again, and smacked at the hand doing so.
"I'm up! I'm up!" he yelped, sitting up straight.
He yawned loudly, then opened his eyes to see Harry, Ron, and Hermione standing before him, dressed in their school robes.
"What are you doing down here?" asked Ron.
"Prof. McGonagall came up to the common room a little bit ago and asked me where you guys were, then she left, I decided to wait down here, now you're here and asking me why I'm down here, and that's the end of the story." replied Riley. "Now, mind telling me what in the world you three were up to?"
"We went to pay Hagrid a visit, and told him what we know," explained Hermione. "We're sorry we didn't tell you or Tony, but too many of us would've attracted more attention, and lost us more points. We just lost us 150 pts. for our little trip, and went into the Dark Forest with Hagrid as punishment."
"On the bright side, Malfoy's skin looks more pale than his own greasy hair." said Ron.
Riley stared between the two for a moment, then looked at Harry.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Not exactly." replied Harry. "Wait'll you three hear this."
Hermione took a seat on the chair nearby the fire, while Ron and Riley sat on the couch in front of the fire, and Harry stood in front of them, pacing back and forth, explaining what had happened when the group was separated in the Dark Forest, and what he had learned. From his, Draco's, and Fang's encounter with the hooded figure drinking the blood from a freshly killed unicorn, to Firenze saving him and warning him. By the time the dark-haired boy was finished, his audience sat in their seats in a stunned silence for a long moment.
"You mean You-Know-Who is out there right now in the Forest?" asked Hermione.
"But he's weak." Harry reminded her. "He's living off the unicorns."
"Ugh. Hello, nightmare fuel." grimaced Riley.
"Don't you see? We had it wrong. Snape doesn't want the Stone for himself, he wants it for Voldemort. With the Elixer of Life, Voldemort will be strong again. He'll...He'll come back."
Harry collapsed in the chair across from where Hermione was sitting, then Ron spoke up.
"But if he comes back, you don't think he'll try to...kill you, do you?" he asked, worriedly.
"Depends on how Voldemort operates." replied Riley.
"Get that from your comic books, did you?"
"...Yes. I don't know this creep well enough to figure out if he's more like Lex Luthor or more like Darkseid."
"Cut it out with the comic book characters already! You're the only one who knows what you're talking about!"
Harry and Hermione glanced at one another, as their friends started to argue, then the latter picked up a pillow and threw it at them.
"Look, if he'd had the chance, he might have tried to kill me tonight." Harry spoke, once his friends stopped arguing.
Ron gulped, looking more worried.
"And to think I've been worrying about my Potions final." he whispered.
"Hang on a minute, we're forgetting one thing." announced Hermione. "Who's the one wizard Voldemort always feared?"
The three boys looked at each other, confused for a moment, then Riley raised his hand.
"Dumbledore?" he guessed.
"Right. As long as Dumbledore is around, Harry, you're safe." Hermione agreed, looking at Harry. "As long as Dumbledore is around, you can't be touched."
The three boys around her nodded in agreement, and were able to go to bed, with that bit of reassuring good news.
As the chapter title suggests, the plot does indeed thicken. I told you guys I'd update sooner than before. I'll try to do it again and for the rest of my fanfics as well. I think we can all agree that writer's block is a total drag though, but I digress. The story continues in the next chapter, so stay tuned.
Disclaimer: I own the Cross family, and the Gabriels. I don't own the Harry Potter series (books, movies, you get it), or any of the DC comics, books, the Walkman player, any artists or songs that appear in this story. If I did, I'd be richer than Lex Luthor, Bruce Wayne, the Malfoys,...okay, you guys get the picture.