"Ron! Wake up!" Harry whispered as he shook his best friend hard while trying not to wake up his other three dormmates from their sleep.
"Go away," Ron mumbled as he turned over in his sleep.
"Come on, Ron! We have to go," Harry tried for quite a while but no matter how hard he tried, Ron refused to budge so finally he had no choice but to bring out his ultimate weapon.
"Think about Lavender, Ron," Harry whispered and the result was instant as Ron stopped snoring and his body stilled, "Think about what would happen if she became your girlfriend, about the stuff you could do to—"
"I am up! I am up!" Ron abruptly sat up and getting off the bed, immediately ran toward the bathroom, "I'll be ready in 5 minutes,"
Harry shook his head at his friend's simple-mindedness, before going toward his own poster bed. He took out his new sneakers from under the bed and after wearing them started reading Hermione's Ancient Rune Notes from last year while waiting.
Harry had arrived at Hogwarts a week ago, with all the usual pomps and decorations that consisted of the start-of-the-term welcoming feast. They had been welcomed by the resident poltergeist, Peeves, in the entrance hall with his hands heavily laden with water balloons, which was exactly what everyone needed after the heavy rain outside the castle.
Fortunately, over the summer, Sirius had taught Harry a couple of useful charms and curses that the marauders had used liberally during their time at Hogwarts, and one of them happened to be a charm especially helpful against the poltergeist.
Sirius had taught him the incantation and the accompanying wand gesture, but that was the first time he used it with an actual wand instead of just practicing with a wood stick.
So he had been very glad when that spell worked flawlessly, and the cherry on top had been when a soaking Hermione, who had been one of Peeves targets, kissed his cheek before giving him a tight hug while telling him that he was her hero.
Harry was bought back into the present by a half-asleep Ron coming out of the bathroom and Harry immediately said while getting up from the bed, "Finally! Now let's go,"
"Just one more second," Ron said while going toward his bed and changing his shirt, and Harry groaned.
Five minutes later they went running down the staircase and found Hermione already waiting in the common room, wearing her muggle workout clothes.
"You're late," she said irritatedly while looking at Ron but a beautiful smile appeared on her face when she turned toward Harry that melted his heart, "Good Morning,"
"Good Morning," Harry smiled as he greeted back while taking her hand.
"God!No!" Ron groaned as he passed them by, "It's too early in the morning for me to handle your disgusting sweetness," he went straight through the porthole and out of the Gryffindor common room.
Hermione rolled her eyes at her grumpy friend but turned to her boyfriend and said, "Let's go,"
They passed through the tall hallways of the castle and the tricky staircases before finally exiting and reaching the grounds. It was about 5:30 in the morning so it was still dark out there, but the curfew only lasted till 5 in the morning so they were not exactly breaking any rules even though the castle was empty.
Breathing in the cold fresh morning air, they passed through the empty ground before reaching the quidditch field.
After getting accustomed to the chill for a few moments, Harry started moving his friends through a light warm-up to get their bodies to loosen up.
At first, only Ron had accompanied Harry during his early morning training because he wanted to join the quidditch team, but after a while, Hermione also started coming along with them because she didn't want to feel left out.
And while the announcement about the Triwizard Tournament had ruined their plans for Ron to join the Quidditch team this year, Ron told him the next day that he had been relieved about it since he would have a whole year to practice and would have less of a chance of making a fool out of himself during the tryouts.
Midway through the workout, Hermione started breathing heavily and looked close to collapsing, so he gave her a break. While it had been more than two weeks since she joined their workouts, she was still not used to the intensity.
About 10 minutes later Ron too gave up, so he completed the rest of the sets alone while they took a breather.
After he completed his usual workout routine, he did some cool-down stretches before he went toward his friends lying on the grass, "Stand Up! Ron! Enough Rest,"
"Ugh..." Ron groaned a bit before getting up from the ground like a zombie.
"Here, the keys," Harry said while giving him a ring of keys, "I got them from Professor Hooch and I got her permission so you could take one of the school brooms,"
That seemed to energize Ron as his eyes opened completely as if he had drunk a pepper-up potion, and seizing the keys he immediately ran to the Broom Shed.
"You know what you have to do, Hermione," Harry said while turning to his girlfriend who was also getting up from the ground in slow motion.
"Do I really have to?" Hermione said with a grimace.
"Come on, Hermione," Harry said while taking her hand, "I promised Ron and I can't do it alone, so please help me,"
"Alright!" Hermione conceded before she pointed a finger and warned him, "But don't ask me later what I did to get her out here. Because you may not like it,"
"I don't care! Just get her here," Harry said before moving toward the quidditch poles, but he didn't know that after he turned around, behind his back his new girlfriend was waving her wand with a whispered incantation and an apologetic look on her face.
Harry felt a sudden chill behind him but when he looked back, the only thing he saw was Hermione going toward the castle. So he dismissed it as the morning wind and went toward Ron who had arrived at the field and was standing there with a broom and a couple of quaffles.
"Alright! let's get right into it," Harry said while picking up his Firebolt and taking off into the air with Ron just behind him.
After a couple of warm-up circles around the field, Harry started going through some of the quidditch drills he did with the Gryffindor team, Ron following behind him and trying to keep up and while he messed up a couple of times, he did admiringly well for his first time going through the drills.
Harry guessed that having three brothers who had been on the Gryffindor team must have paid off. After they had gotten into the groove, they started the actual practice with Harry playing the chaser and Ron goalkeeping.
About 15 minutes later, as Harry was throwing a quaffle for Ron to defend, he saw on the other side of the field behind Ron, Hermione coming toward them. But the thing was that she wasn't alone, Lavender was coming along with her which was part of the plan but what wasn't part of the plan was that Ginny and Parvati were there with them.
"Ron, don't look back but Lavender is here," Harry whispered while throwing a quaffle toward Ron, who fumbled with the ball while looking back which immediately got him flustered.
"Come on, Ron. Focus!" Harry sharply said, "Don't get nervous now. You are going to compliment her just like we practiced,"
"No way!" Ron hissed back, "I can't do that in front of Ginny and Padma,"
"But that's what makes it even better," Harry appeased him with some bullshit, "She will be even happier if you compliment her in front of other girls,"
"Really..." Ron asked unsurely.
"Yes, Of course," Harry nodded before taking the quaffle into his hands and saying, "Now I am going to throw this ball straight toward them so you're going to go there to get the ball and you know what to do next. Alright! Ready! Set Go!"
Harry immediately threw the quaffle which Ron missed whether intentionally or unintentionally, Harry didn't know but it sailed straight toward the steps where the girls were sitting.
"I'll get that," Ron said loudly while flying his broom smoothly away from Harry.
Ron flew down to get the quaffle from the ground and looked up as if surprised to see the girls sitting there, and said, "Hey lavender,"
"Hi Ron," Lavender replied automatically, a bit surprised at being suddenly greeted.
"Did you do something with your hair, Lavender? They look really pretty," Ron said.
"Yeah I did," Lavender perked up at the compliment, "I got a new cut from a muggle beautician over the summer, thanks for seeing that, Ron. You are really observant," She smiled at him before turning and immediately glared at Parvati sitting beside her, "—unlike someone who said it wasn't noticeable at all,"
"Ah... I just noticed that you really looked beautiful that's all. By then," Ron rushed through his words before abruptly zooming away on his broom with the quaffle, his face getting redder with time.
"See you did just fine," Harry said after Ron came to a stop in front of him, "I told you that Hermione's information would be useful,"
"FINE! Do I look Fine?" Ron said, "I am seconds away from losing my grip and falling straight to the ground,"
He wasn't exaggerating as Ron's hands looked really sweaty and his face had also turned maroon like the color of Mrs. Weasley's sweaters, as he mumbled under his breath"I can't believe I did that, it was so embarrassing,"
"Well I think you did alright, and now that the first part of the plan is complete—" Harry started but before he could complete his sentence, he suddenly felt a chill against his chest, and when he looked down he saw that the shirt he was wearing had vanished.
Before Harry could comprehend the reason why he suddenly turned shirtless, he suddenly heard girlish shrieks from the ground and when he looked down he found the trio of girls screaming and jumping while pointing and looking at his body happily.
Harry turned completely red as he immediately escaped from there and flew towards the changing room with the fastest speed his firebolt could handle.
By the time he entered the changing room, his embarrassment had receded so he was able to notice that he could still feel the quidditch jersey he was wearing on his skin, so the jersey had just turned invisible but was still there.
Harry started to wonder whose prank he had fallen under, because while this prank had twins written all over it, he hadn't seen them that day yet, so it couldn't be them.
While he was trying to work out the culprit's identity, the door of the changing room flew open behind him and when he turned around he saw his new girlfriend standing there with a smirk on her face, and all the pieces immediately fell into their place.
Harry suddenly understood why she had asked him to not ask how she would get the job done or why he wouldn't like it.
"You—" Harry was speechless and astonished as he never expected that his girlfriend could manage to pull a prank worthy of the Marauders.
"Now, Don't look at me like that," She said defensively, "I warned you that you may not like what I would have to do to get Lavender down on the quidditch ground. And the only thing I could think of was to entice her with a show of my boyfriend's sexy physique. So I told her that the twins were about to pull a prank on you and she could get a free show..."
"And what about Ginny and Parvati?"
"Well... So when I was tricking Lavender, Ginny and Parvati happened to be passing by and after hearing about it, they obviously wanted in, so one thing led to another..." Hermione finished with an innocent look in her eyes.
"You sound awfully smug about that," Harry accused her while looking at his complacent girlfriend with narrowed eyes.
"I am not smug...It's just now that I can feel the satisfaction of a well-executed prank. I understand the twins a lot better," She said with a sigh of triumph.
"Well, you know that there are consequences for some pranks..."Harry said darkly while stalking towards Hermione like a predator, "You used me for your entertainment—so now you're going to have to pay for that..."
"Umm..."Hermione gulped while slowly backing away toward the closed door as her shirtless boyfriend came close to her, and suddenly her confidence from before left her as she started feeling a lot less sure about her prank...
...
In the living room of his manor, Sirius was sitting while staring at the comb in his hands and occasionally glancing toward the clock as if waiting for something to happen.
The comb in Sirius's hand wasn't just a regular one, in fact, it was a portkey that had been delivered by Fawkes, the magical phoenix of Dumbledore, that very morning using its own variety of fire teleportation.
To make sense of where the portkey leads to and why Dumbledore sent it to Sirius, we need to go back a couple of days when Sirius had declared that he would find the mysterious tomb of Herpo the foul, and free Harry from the parasite in his head.
But as Dumbledore explained to him after he had calmed down, it turns out you can't just pack up an expanded backpack and go on a Curse Breaking adventure, just because you want to. You need the proper kind of training and the specific knowledge involved before you can even go searching for stuff like this. Because if you don't then you're just going to be searching blind and you may even pass just above the location of the tomb like a fool without ever knowing.
But unfortunately for him, he didn't get that get as part of the package when he took over as Sirius never needed that kind of knowledge or training so he had to go at it the hard way and learn it from someone.
So Dumbledore told him to wait for his letter as he would try to find an appropriate mentor for him, who could teach him every nuance involved in curse breaking as well as every spell that could be useful on this expedition.
And that very letter had arrived this morning along with the instruction of how to behave as the mentor Dumbledore had found for him was very strict and somewhat of a recluse so he had to be on his best behavior.
So, Sirius had applied a couple of charms on his hair and eyes, just like last time, wore the most formal clothes he had, and sat on the couch like a good boy to wait for the portkey to do its magic.
Remus had gone for his job so he was all alone with just his house-elf Kreacher who was probably in the backyard, growing whatever magical plants the black family used to require their houses be stocked with.
While Dumbledore was leaving that day, he had made a passing comment about how he still needed to go to Alastor Moody's home to ask him to teach at Hogwarts the coming year as the DADA teacher.
At that moment he had suddenly been placed in a dilemma about whether he should the course of everything which could make his metaknowledge a bit wonky.
And if he decided to say f**k it all and just change shit with thinking things through, how would I even convince Dumbledore to change his mind about his choice of DADA teacher or how to convince him to save the real moody, without him getting suspicious about where I got the knowledge from.
Plus there was the saying he had heard about, "Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't", so even if he somehow caught Barty crouch Jr. without f**king it up, what if Voldemort decide to send someone else, someone I had no knowledge of.
So in the end, he didn't tell Dumbledore that the DADA professor this year was going to be a fake or that at that Voldemort was very vulnerable in a baby's body, rooming with the rat at the ... At the... At the...
"Ugh..." Sirius immediately got a headache as he tried to recall the name of the place where Voldemort was supposed to be staying from his metaknowledge, but it seems to be protected by a fidelius kind of charm. That was also another reason he didn't try to change the canon, as he couldn't remember the name of the place no matter how hard he tried.
Sirius tried to take his mind off the headache and looked at the time. But there was still quite a bit of time left till the portkey took off so he decided that he should pay a visit to the backyard and on his elf, Kreacher to see that he wasn't growing a nuclear plant or something.
Leaving the room, he passed by the kitchen and went deep into the mansion. After going through a high hallway he arrived at the door behind which lay the entrance to the greenhouse.
Opening the door he was instantly greeted by a whole lot of stunning green. The second he stepped foot inside his nose was assaulted by a plethora of herbal smells, that were so aromatic it felt as if he had entered a spice market.
He was completely stunned by what he saw, the grounds that had been completely barren and except for some weeds, a couple of weeks ago, were now completely filled with a wide variety of magical plants of various shapes, sizes, and colors.
As he passed through some kind of a vine-like plant, he suddenly heard a pop, and Kreacher the person or rather the elf behind this magical garden appeared in front of him.
"Master came to check on Kreacher's work?" Kreacher said while bowing, and as Sirius looked at him, he noticed that he looked a lot healthier and was even smiling happily instead of nastily like before.
"Umm... Yes, I came to check on your progress," Sirius lied through his teeth, "So what's this plant," he asked while pointing at a random green weed-like plant.
"That is fluxweed, Master," Kreacher squeaked.
"Isn't that mostly used in Polyjuice potion," Sirius asked curiously as he didn't know what the plant looked like as Sirius hadn't taken Herbology NEWT. He did know what Fluxweed was used for when it had been harvested as he did take Potion NEWT.
"Yes, Master,"
"But wouldn't it be easily available in any magical shop,"
"Yes, it would... but the shopkeeper be very nosy, and asking all kinds of questions like—What would you do with it? What is your name? Where are you from? so the Old Masters of the Black family used to ask the elves to grow so that they didn't have to deal with that,"
"Umm... that would make sense," Sirius wondered as he did remember the ingredients for this potion being hard, or else people like Barty Crouch Jr. wouldn't have to steal from Snape, "And what about this one," Sirius asked while pointing toward a beautiful purple flower.
"That one is very special master," Kreacher said happily, "Almost all the old Masters Blacks used to like that, they used to go and sniff them and then—" Sirius leaned and sniffed it, "—they would be very happy with wide smiles all day.
A second later Sirius felt a rush of adrenaline suddenly go through his body like electricity as he instantly understood the kind of plant it was. His surrounding started to wobble around as he started getting trippy, and all kinds of hallucinations started to appear in front of him.
IT WAS F**ING MAGICAL WEED, it was like the weed he had taken in his past life multiplied by a thousand. With a wide smile on his face, he turned to Kreacher whose huge eyes were magnified even more, "What wasss thatttt, Kreacherrrrr..."
"Master smelled before Kreacher could tell him that it is usually diluted before using," Kreacher said while shaking his innocently, "But don't worry, Master. Kreacher has the cure right here in this garden so he will get it for you in a jiffy,"
Sirius felt relief flood his body for an instant before his hopes were dashed as he suddenly felt a jerk go inside his navel before the world suddenly started very rapidly as all he could do was scream, "OHHH SHITTTT..."
/
To read ahead go to == pat reon lazywizard
And check out my other fic : The Warg Lord
