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Being the teenager that he was, Harry put Cho first on the list, but she seemed preoccupied talking about strategies with a teammate at the moment. "Oh well, that can wait", thought Harry. No sooner had this thought appeared and vanished, Ron started tugging impatiently on his arm. "Hey! This way! We've got some catching up to do! And I have something great to show you!" Harry rolled his eyes. A Ron Weasley idea usually turned out something more along the lines of chaotic than "great". The idea would have to wait until after a parental visit. "I want you on your best behavior today!" exclaimed Molly, giving her son a furrowed brow. Harry had a feeling that wasn't going to slow him down very much. "You're becoming a fine young man Harry!" A slight blush came to his face. "Thank you Mrs. Weasley." Arthur simply granted him a handshake and best wishes. Harry decided to pay his respects to Rubeus. After all this time, he was still in awe of the half giant's size, even though size was quite irrelevant to wizards. There remained many muggle tendencies that would die hard, he supposed. He also surely had to thank Dumbledore for the letters, which played no small part in keeping him sane over the summer. Before any such action could be taken, however, Ron pulled him to the side. "OK, my parents aren't looking! I can show you now I guarantee this will be you're a birthday surprise you won't forget! " He pulled a rubber lizard from his pocket, and started shaking it around with a grin. "Uh, I may be getting a little too old for that" started Harry. "No, no! You KNOW there's more to it than this!" Indeed, Harry did know there was more to it than that Ron touched the top of its head with his index finger and quickly put it on the ground. The lizard grew exponentially! After growing to about the size of a crocodile, it came to life and started to run amok. "The cake!" Dumbledore exclaimed. "It took hours" A group of Gryffindor boys guarded Harry's magnificent cake. The lizard didn't seem to be causing any destruction, but all of the party guests seemed to be in a state of frenzy, trying to catch the large and very quick rubber lizard. Sirius took Harry by the arm and said "quick, come with me." He led Harry to a room in the back. "Oh, I think I'll be all right, but I bet Ron is just as surprised by his birthday surprise as I am!" a grin came to his face. "I had him do it on purpose" Sirius said. "Ron? The lizard.?" Sirius' voice was but a whisper. "I told him to cause a diversion. I knew he had a knack for such things I needed everyone to be distracted so no one would overhear us." So in an indirect way, Ron's magic had actually had its intended effect! "Harry, I don't want to spoil this special day, but I think Hogwarts may be cursed by an evil presence once again I need you to investigate. Don't be deliberate. Just write me a letter, describing any strange occurrences you might notice." A quizzical look came to Harry's face. "Put the messages in bottles and throw them in the lake" whispered Sirius, anticipating Harry's question. "Messages in bottles?" Sirius nodded. "Don't tell anyone else. YOU are the only person I trust right now Harry, and your investigative abilities have proven almost as valuable as your potential as a wizard." Harry nodded his acceptance of the task. "But you can worry about this tomorrow. After all, today is your day. I think the candles are getting lit as we speak. Everyone's waiting for the big moment!" The two of them stepped outside. Their absence was hardly noticed due to Ron's distraction (someone had caught the lizard and returned it to its original size), and the task of candle lighting. Harry stepped in front of the cake and prepared to make his wish. Chapter 4 -Summer School- The rest of the birthday party went by as uneventful as possible with a party of Wizards. In all Harry had had a great time. He spent the last week of summer with his God-father in London, learning about the magical community that was living there. They had bought all of his things for 5th year. There had been no mention afterwards about the supposed dangers in Hogwarts. Harry started to get the strange suspicion that his god-father was still under watch by the MoM, somehow. As all great times in Harry's recent past, the time didn't seem to last long enough. Before long he and his god-father found themselves at Kings Cross Station. As normal he had entered the platform in the unusual way of running into the wall between platforms 9 and 10, with his godfather, it seemed more fun to do it together. When they reappeared on the other side of the barrier, the Weasleys and the Graingers were waiting for them. The two families waved and invited the two of them over to talk as the train hadn't even arrived yet. Ron was a bit excited as he explained "There are a lot of exchange students this year, we sent off 15 students abroad, and received a bunch back, they should be arriving here soon." Harry wasn't sure what to expect. "How do you always know these things before me?" he asked. "Only the 6th and 7th years where allowed to apply don't worry," Hermione added. "I wanted to apply but they just wouldn't let me as I am only a 5th year." "Um...." Harry was still thinking of how they had found out, when Sirius spoke up. "It was posted in the Daily Prophet. We'll get you a subscription this year." Sirius shrugged, "Then next year you might have the opportunity to go." "Fred applied and got sent to Taiwan!" Ron was almost proud of his brother for the first time. "And George went to Canada!" Ginny, Ron's little sister smiled shyly. She had a crush on Harry and sometimes it was annoying, but he didn't want to hurt her, so usually he ignored it. As they had been talking, the ground began to shake heavily on platform 9 3/4. Harry had to grab a hold of Hedwig's cage to keep it from falling off the cart. After a few minutes of the quake, it suddenly stopped. Harry looked over and not far away he saw what looked like three red goblins with big horns on their heads reaching out of the ground. They had grabbed a hold of an Asian girl, obviously one of the exchange students. She shrieked as the creatures tried to drag her into the ground. Behind him Harry could hear another shriek, this time from Ginny. He spun around and could see two pairs of hands emerging from the ground and grasping Ginny's ankles. Several other students had been grabbed all around him, all of them female. Harry didn't know what to do. Harry did the only thing he could think of to save Ron's sister "Expecto-Patronum!" He whipped out his wand. A large semi-transparent stag sped in front of him, but didn't effect the creatures or their grasp on Ginny. "SPRAMIUS-DOLLAY!" Came a loud adult voice. The effect was spectacular, the sky turned royal purple and the creatures began to shriek and wither into nothingness. When Harry looked around all the adults had turned pale. Nobody could see who had cast the spell, and the adults refused to talk about why they looked so scared. It was seconds after this that Albus Dumbledore himself, and a strange man in ornate robes Apparated into the station. As far as Harry knew, this had never happened before. Between Dumbledore and the impressive looking wizard with him, a spell was cast that caused the entire station to rock with a ear piercing shriek. When the shriek was gone, the train arrived and a pale faced Dumbledore ushered the children on to the train as fast as possible. Harry looked at Hermione and Ron, who had also gone pale. "What just happened?" He asked. "Don't you know?"Hermione gasped. When Harry looked completely without a clue so Ron cut in, "that was an Exorcism they did back there." When Harry still didn't seem to understand, Hermione folded her arms, "Don't you ever read?" She fumed. "Those things were DEMONS!" "Demon's haven't been seen in hundreds of years according to dad." Ron added, shocked that Harry hadn't figured it out. "Oh," was all that Harry could say. He felt really stupid. The only thing that seemed to help was Ginny's whisper of "I didn't know either..." and she was silent for the rest of the trip. Jump to Page 3 |