"So dementors are actually what happens when someone gets this game system and tries to give it to their friends?" Ron summed up. "And since there are dementors in at least two places, you getting this power is at least the third time it's happened?"

"That's what it looks like," Harry shrugged, kneeling down and peering into a corner of the defense classroom. They'd gotten back to Hogwarts early enough to have a Marauders meeting in Remus' new workplace. While they were catching the others up on what they'd learned over the holidays, they were seeing if anyone—particularly Harry with his weird senses—could find a clue about the jinx on the position.

"Could be way more," Lee figured. "It's not like everyone is going to make it a big project to try to share."

"Yeah, really. It's a surprise that a dark wizard like Ekrizdis wanted to give it away," George agreed.

"Could be a bunch of powerful wizards that just used it and kept it to themselves. Maybe Dumbledore already has it," Fred quipped.

"Or Tom," Ginny frowned.

"We are going to have to bring this up to Albus eventually," Remus told them, then held up his hands in surrender when they all whipped to look at him and Sirius growled a little flopped out by the fireplace in his dog form. "I'm not going to force the issue. And I don't approve of his mind reading and probable manipulation. But I still believe he has good intentions. It's up to Harry."

"At the very least, he could help a lot getting to Azkaban to investigate," Hermione added, glad to have someone else suggesting the sense of getting an archmage involved in figuring this all out. "My worry in all of this though is… is reality a video game? And just a few people have randomly gotten the ability to see it?"

"While that's certainly a disturbing possibility," Remus mused, only vaguely even aware of what video games were from hearing conversations at his odd jobs in the muggle world, "it's but one of many. It could just as easily be something like a useful collection of abilities some ancient wizard created through a ritual powerful enough to echo through time and be tapped into by others." Everyone looked at him in various stages of disbelief and he expanded, "What? It could happen. The Egyptians in particular followed pre-wand traditions and became masters of ritualized magic that we know little about. Their traps alone have remained potent for thousands of years."

George agreed, "That's what Bill is up to: curse-breaking in Egypt."

"Mum's been hoping we could find the money to go visit him this summer," Fred added.

"Right. So I don't think we need to jump to the conclusion that we're all in some kind of computer simulation immediately," Remus shrugged.

The conversation hit a lull for a few minutes as wizard minds that had never even considered that reality might be an alien intelligence's video game tried to work through the various implications, mostly deciding that it would, indeed, make more sense to them if some Egyptian wizard-priest had figured out a cool way to store his luggage and find his way around.

"I know you like to complete quests…" Ron changed the subject, trying to figure out how to broach the difficult topic, finally just landing on, "...but could you just not do this one?"

"What if Ekrizdis turned into a dementor?" Harry asked. "We don't know if it's just the people he gave it to." He thought about it for another second before adding, "And maybe we could figure out how to get rid of all of them. They're wrong."

"I'm worried that it's a main quest," Hermione said. "The last one was a warning about the basilisk. Maybe we only have a few months for this one, too, before something bad happens."

"One thing we can do in the meantime," Remus suggested, "is try to teach you the patronus charm. It's normally a NEWT-level spell, but with your advanced skills, you might be able to learn it."

"That's the only spell that works on dementors," Hermione nodded. "At least that we know of."

THE BEST DEFENSE

Learn defense spells.
O Patronus Charm
O Shield Charm
O Stunning Spell

"Can you teach me to shield and stun, too?" Harry asked, reading the quest text.

"Again, normally you'd be at least fourth year for those, but, I believe so," Remus agreed.

"Us too!" George suggested.

"And your pranking secrets," Fred added, giving the game away that they were just so chuffed to spend extra time with the senior Marauders that they'd idolized for so long.

"And me," Hermione said, eager for the challenge.

"This is advanced material," Remus warned them.

"We can hang out, at least," Ron shrugged, pointing at himself and Ginny. Grudgingly, his sister nodded. She probably wasn't going to learn a bunch of spells that were fourth-year minimum with four months of magical training.

"John had mentioned wanting to keep up with the dueling club," Remus mused. "Perhaps we could couch it as lessons for that and he can help."

"Dawlish is sticking around?" Harry asked.

"Albus seemed surprised as well, and possibly not altogether pleased," the werewolf shrugged. "It seems that, even without the dementors, he's still tasked to stay in residence and watch out for signs of Sirius Black."

Sirius, for his part, gave a doggy grunt.

"I think he's just here for the Minister, really," Harry said, vaguely remembering his dream. "He's spying."

"Certainly explains why Albus might not be amused," Remus said. "I admit to not keeping up with politics as much as I probably should."

"I don't think Harry is going to find anything," Hermione changed the subject. "Only, the headmaster must have already been over the classroom for runes and such, and has this even always been the defense classroom? They must have tried moving it?"

"It was in a different room for a few years when we were in school," Remus remembered.

Sirius barked in agreement as well. He could probably get away with being in human form with Harry watching the map for visitors, but it seemed like a lot of risk. And he was enjoying getting to just relax by the fire.

"And the quest says research a jinx on the position," Harry added.

"More library time?" Ron asked.

"More library time!" Hermione agreed.

"But first, bedtime," Fred yawned.

"Classes again tomorrow," George nodded.

Ginny had defense on Monday, but the second-years didn't have Remus until Tuesday morning (and the twins and Lee would have to wait all the way until Thursday). Without Dawlish's months as defense professor, the students would have been blown away by the quality of the instruction. As it was, they were merely impressed.

"I shan't be unleashing creatures on you, at least at second-year," Remus said after introducing himself to Harry's class. "I understand there was a bit of a problem with pixies?" The class laughed at the joke, but looked in interest at the various cages around the room.

Toward the end of the holidays, they'd realized that Grimmauld Place provided an ideal set of practical exercises, and they'd managed to capture the boggart, several doxies, and a few other magical pests from various rooms in the house. Remus had grand plans to use them in his lessons. The cabinet they'd stored the boggart in thumped menacingly from the corner of the room, but remained securely locked.

"I would like to turn your attention to them however, as there are quite a few magical creatures that you are likely to encounter in seemingly-safe locations, and it is good to know how to defend yourselves."

"Are we doin' any duelin'?" Seamus asked, barely raising his hand. "Dawlish had us doin' a lot of that."

"Absolutely," Remus acknowledged, "but in moderation. We will also be maintaining the dueling club, so we can focus on the larger curriculum in class."

Overall, after an informative lecture on doxies (managing to deflect any questions about why he had so many recent stories about fighting them), even Seamus had to admit that it was going to be a good class. Remus seemed strangely at ease in the classroom, and for all that he was a classic academic that would be at home in a tweed blazer, his easygoing nature and quick wit kept his lectures from becoming stuffy.

Unfortunately, the first week of classes saw Remus' affable teaching style grow more forced, as the full moon approached on that Friday. It was all he could do to remain pleasant in class, so he definitely didn't have the energy for evening tutoring. At least for his first full moon as defense professor, he'd have the whole weekend to recover.

"Do we have time to brew you the wolfsbane?" Harry asked when they finally realized on Thursday nights why he didn't want to meet in the evenings later in the week.

"Fortunately, Severus is providing it for me." Sirius growled at that pronouncement, but Remus cautioned, "He has every reason to make sure I'm as safe as possible on the moon. I understand he offered to brew it himself as soon as he found out I was hired…" he thought for a moment before admitting, "and that he couldn't convince Albus to rescind the offer."

Harry nodded thoughtfully. At some point over his months of conversations with Remus and Sirius he'd put together that a large part of Snape's problem with them all was that he'd almost gotten killed finding out Remus was a werewolf back in their school days. It was probably the time James Potter had "saved his life" that Dumbledore had alluded to, and Harry was becoming mature enough to realize that the headmaster had been putting a very weird slant on that encounter. It would be like if Malfoy tried to kill Harry and one of the other Slytherins decided at the last second to save him: he'd still probably be pretty angry about the whole thing rather than grateful.

"We should still pick a place to make polyjuice," Harry finally suggested.

"And we could still figure out how to make wolfsbane, in case Snape decides to be a jerk," Fred figured.

"Maybe we can figure out how to improve it or at least get it to do something else interesting," George added.

"Do you have a place we can use?" Harry checked.

"Tough ask," George cautioned.

"We think Filch is on to the collapsed tunnel we were using," Fred agreed.

"I was thinking about using Myrtle's bathroom?" Hermione mused, "But I guess someone might go in there sometimes just to check to make sure the Chamber is still closed."

"And it's unsanitary," George figured.

"Plus, there might be questions if a bunch of blokes went in and out all the time," Fred concluded.

"And I don't think Gloria would like my cover of chatting up Myrtle," Lee grinned.

"We could go down to the Chamber itself?" Ron suggested. "Only Harry can get it open. Or Ginny?"

His sister shook her head, "I don't think I know how to anymore without the diary. And I don't want to."

"Do you understand this?" Harry asked in Parseltongue.

"Just hissing, thank Merlin," she gave a slight smile, glad of the proof that no fragments of Tom were left in her head.

"Anyway, I think Dawlish and Dumbledore have been exploring down there," Harry finally answered Ron's question. "They've asked me to let them in a few times. They'd probably notice if a potions lab got set up."

"What about the other space up on our floor?" Hermione realized. "It would be easy for us to get to, and these two never even found out what was in there."

"True," Remus agreed, when Harry pulled out the physical Marauders' Map and showed the area they meant. "The best we could figure was that it was Albus' private bathroom or something, since it's close to his office."

"Maybe between Harry's abilities and Sirius' nose, we can figure it out this weekend, while you're recovering?" Hermione suggested. As she did, a new quest popped up into Harry's view, and he wondered why it had taken that long, since they'd been looking into it months earlier.

Surplus to Requirements

Find out how to enter the hidden room.