| Every parent leaves something behind for their children to remember them by. Lily Evans didn�t know, when she left her diary behind, that it would help her son into knowing her and himself�or did she? Disclaimer: Do you guys really wanna hear another one? Nah, didn�t think so. Lets move on. First off, I really need to thank the wonderful reviewers for giving me 201 reviews for twelve measly chapter and a prologue. You guys rock. And now to answer your questions: Scarab65: I really would regret it if I let Hermione die, now wouldn�t I? ^__^� Chibi-zan: You are definitely a very thorough reviewer, and I thank you for your very constructive critisism, but when I planned my story, it was almost meant to be three stories in one, and now we�re beginning to step into the second. It has nothing to do with the existence of OotP. In the end, however, it will all come together, so I hope you stick around till then. But you�re right, since I�m trying to write as fast as I can, I did drop a lot of my descriptiveness, yet the thing is that if I don�t write this as fast as I can, or if I stop myself to go back and try to edit it, I�ll lose the will to finish it, so I first want to complete it, and then I�ll do a full re-edition. I hope you don�t mind. Curly girl: Well, Quidditch won�t be part of the picture till very much later on, but Hagrid does show up in this one. I have a problem with writing his way of speaking (because I�ve only read the books in Italian), so he only speaks indirectly here. If there�s anyone out there who wants to help me write him out better, let me know ^_^. And now: on with the fic. Harry Potter and the Knowledge of a Mother Chapter 13: The first missions That morning, Harry looked awful. He looked like he hadn�t slept in ages, and he looked thinner as well. Of course, that could have been because of the inhumane Quidditch practice that he placed himself through everyday, in ever increasing amounts, yet Ron had a feeling that it was a little more than that. For one thing, Harry wasn�t eating. Though Harry was not school famous because of his appetite, like himself, he did, however know how to heartily eat a heavenly house elf prepared breakfast right before practice. The only times Harry turned down food were when he was nervous, such as before a Quidditch match, and Ron knew very well that there weren�t any planned for quite a long while. Wistfully he looked out the windows to see the Quidditch pith, a little cleaner than it had been before, but still infested with the carnivorous beetlesquash. He gave a sigh. Nope, Quidditch wasn�t what had kept his friend from sleep the previous night. It had to be that dream he�d been having. The one that had him tumbling in the sheets, gasping like a drowning man, sweating with the horrible images his mind must have been sending him. Ron was sure he had a pretty good idea of what the nightmare concerned, though not in detail. Harry had been stealing glances at the female third of their trio the entire morning�who was completely unawares with her nose shoved between the pages of the Visions� Journal that Jenna had given them a while back. Harry�s eyes were clouded, sad and desperate whenever they fell on her. He must have been worried that whatever he dreamt had a chance to become true. And, thinking about it, maybe it did. After all, Harry�s mother had been a strong Seer, and, rather often, Harry had told them about strange dreams whose outcomes very often had turned out to be valid. SLAM! The two were snapped out of their thoughts by the shocking, loud sound of Hermione shutting the journal a little too quickly and strongly. They looked at her to see that childishly happy expression that crossed her face whenever she�d run into an argument that required deep, challenging research. "I have to go to the library," she said giddily, leaving the pair to watch her dash out before they could even reply, her food untouched. This was definitely the strangest couple he�d ever seen, Ron decided after a moment of contemplation, before going back to his breakfast, therefore allowing Harry to go back to his brooding. �*� As Harry pulled up from his deathly dive to catch the Snitch, he noticed Headmaster Dumbledore sitting on the outskirts of the Forever Remember Garden, waiting for him to catch the elusive little ball so that they could pause their practice. He pulled his broom down to stand before him, Ron lending next to him. "Hello, professor," saluted the two boys simultaneously. Dumbledore gave them one of his twinkly eyed smiles. "Do you enjoy your improvised practice field?" He asked. They both doubted that he came all the way over to the Garden simply to ask that, but they humoured him. "Uhm�yeah!" Started Harry. "It�s good practice. The mist makes the Snitch harder to see." "Yeah, and it slows down the brooms so the team�s forced to push them harder. Off this field they�re really fast," and Ron was about to go on as to what a wonderful training ground that happened to be, when he caught Harry�s look and decided to let the Headmaster speak. Dumbledore turned to Harry. "I�m afraid we have a problem, Harry," before the boy could even get worried, the old wizard reassured him. "Nothing horrible. Just that one of our regular patrollers from the village is very sick, and I need you to fill in for him," Harry relaxed. "I had already decided to ask you to scout the skies a few nights a month, it�s a good opportunity to test your new abilities." Harry nodded. "When do I have to do it?" "Tonight will be your first watch," Dumbledore informed him. "I�ll space your watches far apart as to not burden you too much in your studying. You won�t have another one for a couple of weeks to come." Harry nodded, and Dumbledore walked off to leave them to their practicing. Hours later, walking up the stairs to reach the Gryffindor tower, sweaty, sore, and all around beat, Ron did what he did best in those moments. He whined. "I wanted to keep first watch," he lamented. Out of nowhere a voice replied from behind. "I don�t think you�ll ever keep watch." "Hermione!" Ron jumped, startled by her sudden appearance. Then he caught on to what she�d said. "What? Why?" He sputtered indignantly. She shrugged. "Harry and I have powerful forms," she began, "he can even fly without being seen at any hour of the day. We could be able to fight if case asked for it. You wouldn�t ever be able to hold against a breach," seeing his disappointed face she added, "you�re more adapt at spying." He perked up at hearing that. "Huh?" Hermione sighed. "You�re small enough that you can move in and out of places quickly without being seen. You could even walk into secret enemy meetings by walking in under someone�s cloak. It would be easy for you to sit in a dark spot and listen in on an important conversation. It would be very helpful," she explained. Ron beamed. "So did you find what you were looking for in the library?" Harry asked, hoping to spend some time with her. Since his nightmare the previous night, he�d been edgy, and had wanted to stay close to her just to see if anything out of the ordinary happened. "Maybe," she replied, her expression thoughtful, "the pendant you gave me at Christmas was giving a little bit of glow under my blouse while I read, so I think I�m on the right track, I just don�t know where to go precisely," she told him. "See you later," she said as she turned a corner in a hallway divergent from theirs. "Where are you going?" Harry called behind her. "To see Trelawny," she shouted back as she ran the long way to the Divination Tower. Ron and Harry looked at each other. "You reckon they�ll try to poison each other?" Ron joked, referring to the two women�s distaste for each other. Harry just shrugged as he watched Hermione�s retreating figure. �*� Panting slightly, Hermione opened the door to the Divination classroom as she walked up the stairs, knowing full well that at the time, Trelawny had no lessons and was probably alone. Walking into the room, the suffocating smell that she clearly remembered from her third year�along with the even more suffocating fire�reached her at dizzying speed. Trying to fight back a sneeze while clearing her throat she called out to the teacher that she despised most�even more than Snape�"Professor Trelawny?" And from behind a veiled curtain she heard the tinkling sound of her exaggerated bracelets, and her veiled voice grating on her nerves already. "Ah, yes, our deserter," Trelawny taunted, giving her a venomous smirk, "my inner eye told me I would see you soon," she announced. Hermione turned away so the teacher wouldn�t notice her rolling her eyes. What a load of codswallop! "I just needed to ask you something as cross reference for an essay I�m writing," Hermione felt the need to specify. There was no way on this magic Earth that would bring her back to this classroom willingly without a good reason. "And how, exactly, should my fine art help you in one of your essays?" She asked sharply. Hermione had the strongest erge to say, Well, you�re the Seer, shouldn�t you know already? But she bit her tongue, and explained. "I need to know a few things about Vatis Divinus. Since his writings are considered heretic even to other Seers I thought you might know a little more about them. The library has almost nothing on him." Trelawny stiffened. "I do not speak that heretician�s name, nor do I repeat his falsehoods," she sniffed. "Now, leave." Hermione didn�t need to be told twice. Trelawny had just confirmed what she suspected. Vatis Divinus, once a very prophet Seer, had been marked as heretic when he predicted the rise of the darkest wizard the past few centuries had ever seen. That hadn�t been surprising, many had already prophesised that, yet, his predictions differed entirely from the rest. In fact, this man had said that the dark wizard would lose his powers to a child, and that, after years of waiting, he would come back to claim revenge. So Trelawney�s reaction told Hermione that she was definitely on the right track. Now all she needed to do was find those heretic writings of his to know how to keep the wizards revenge from destroying Harry, but how would she do that? �*� Harry was amazed. It was a widely known fact that there was nothing that Harry enjoyed more than flying on his broomstick. Well, tonight he�d been proved wrong. Flying as a bird was by far bloody better than a broomstick. It wasn�t like riding his Firebolt, which was such a good broom it practically flew well enough to let someone like Neville on and lead him to the Quidditch finals without him having to do anything. No, flying as a bird was nothing but pure personal talent. It was his body, the width and length of his wings, along with their position, the angle at which he bent his head, the way he held his talons. It was absolutely electrifying, and it had no limits. Plus, it gave him a whole new view of Hogwarts and the grounds around them. A broom couldn�t usually be taken too far up, in this form he could go high enough to kiss the sky, and it gave him a whole new fix on things. Flying over Hogsmeade he saw hundreds of new allyways and shortcuts that he�d never seen or dreamt before, things that probably not even the Marauders knew about. And the castle! There were some towers and outer staircases that weren�t even mentioned in the Marauders� Map, and there was nothing that he wanted more than to fetch Ron and Hermione to go and explore them to find out what they held. Yet, the most surprising of all was the forest and the lake. The latter kad an unnatural glow during the night, and he could see all the way down to where the mermaids were, there where he�d first seem them during the second task of the Triwizard tournament. While the forest was eerie as always from above, but he realized that with his strongly enhanced vision, he could see through the thick foliage to almost any dark depth. For example, there where Aragog and his family stood, he could distinctly tell apart each of their hairy legs from the branches of the trees they stood on, saw each one of their insect eyes reflecting oh, so slightly, the glow from that eyelash of moon above him. He could see creatures he�d never dreamed of, small and deadly, huge and frightened, predator and prey. It was horrible and petrifying, yet beautiful and hypnotizing all at once. He would have stared at it till dawn, if a slight movement from the edge of the forest hadn�t caught his sharp glowing, phosphorescent green, hawkish eyes. It was the door to Hagrid�s hut, opening to let the half giant out, along with Fang, his trusty weapon, and a lantern. When Hagrid looked up to the skies, Harry was afraid that he might see him, but it wasn�t so, and Hermione�s words played back in his mind. A Wingadeus can�t be seen in flight, not even in full daylight. If he didn�t have a sharp, black beak�which seemed to be made out of some metal�he would have sighed in relief. Not that he didn�t want to speak to Hagrid, he just didn�t know how the scruffy half giant would have reacted to seeing a gigantic magical hawk supposed to be extinct. Harry didn�t really wish to be kept where the hippogriffs once were. Wondering what it was exactly that Hagrid did in the Forbidden Forest, Harry decided to tail him. He watched as the big man walked right past a thick, seemingly impenetrable, wall of tall bush shrubs as though they weren�t even there. Harry realized they probably weren�t, especially once he noticed that only a few paces behind those shrubs, seemed to begin a wide, easy trail, pretty much clear of particularly dangerous creatures. Even an average third year might have been able to cross it without much injury. Upon closer inspections, Harry also realized that it had just been opened, probably not earlier than the previous week, and it must have been covered the whole way with protective charms and spells. What�or better�who had Dumbledore given this dangerous, hidden shelter to? Leaving Hagrid, and the dim light of his lantern behind, Harry flew ahead, following the clearing. It wasn�t hard. Not only could he clearly see the path through the foliage, but the air above it smelled better, cleaner, purer. And it led to the exact centre of the forest, he realized standing above it, where the trees were cluttered so thickly he almost couldn�t see through them. Oh, wait, he could! It seemed as though the longer he stared at it, the more he could see through the thick leaves as though they were nothing but a hologram. Of course! A masking spell! Maybe the Wingadeus had more powers than were known to wizards, he was pretty sure that in this form he could see through magic pretty clearly, and he was already beginning to master it within only a couple of hours in this form. In any case, the trees above the clearing where the trail ended were practically entirely see through at the moment, and what he could see past them shocked him. A group of giants, maybe sixty of them or so, were cluttered there, safe in the arms of all the magic in Dumbledore�s hands. Of course, as a shadow member of the Order, he knew that the ancient wizard had managed to get the giants on his side, but that he�d invited them to stay inside the forest was something completely new to him. What were they talking about down there? He wanted to lower himself down to a branch to listen, but would they see him? They couldn�t in flight, but could they while he just sat there for them to gawk at him? He decided to take the risk, although he realized that if all giants had that avid fascination with "interesting creatures" that Hagrid had, being seen by them could be very dangerous. However, it seemed they couldn�t, so he hid as best he could�just in case�and strained his hawkish hearing to try and understand what they were saying. At first, most of it sounded like gurgling. It must have been a different language, but if he strained to understand, he found that he did. The giants� mouths kept on forming gargles, but he clearly heard them speaking English. None of them, however, were saying anything worth listening to. Some were contemplating on what a nice spot Dumbledore had given them, some were saying they hoped to stay long, some others were saying they were hungry. And it was then that Hagrid appeared in the clearing, and all the giants seemed to be mighty happy. Because he was bringing them food. At first, Harry found it strange that the giants attempted to speak English with someone who shared their blood by half, but he remembered right away that Hagrid had been raised by his father, a human, and had almost never known the giant half of his parentage. Was his mother among them? Harry couldn�t tell. The women�if there were any among them�did not look like Madame Maxime. In any case, Hagrid didn�t seem to regard any of them differently from another. Hagrid sat there with them for a good two hours, Harry watching him, talking to them about things that weren�t really all that important. What school was like inside, the students, the rest of the faculty, a lot of the time, Hagrid actually told them tales of Harry, which the giants seemed to enjoy, but for the most part, his friend kept reminding them that Dumbledore was a great wizard and that Hogwarts and probably the rest of the wizarding world would be lost without him. It was only when the first rays of the rising sun began to shine on the branch Harry was occupying, did he realize how late it was. As silently as he could, he whooshed his wings above the giants and took off toward the entrance of the castle, where, to his surprise, he found that Dumbledore was waiting for him. Harry understood right away that Dumbledore had sent him out that night exactly so that he could see what was going on in the forest. "How long have they been here?" Harry asked, knowing that Dumbledore was waiting for that question. "The giants arrived yesterday," the wizard replied quietly, and continued anticipating Harry�s question. "I called the because of what you told me," oh, so that was it. It had to be because of that. Otherwise, why would he have pulled sixty valuable looking giants from the Army that he�d secretly been preparing for the past two years? "How long will they stay?" Dumbledore was expecting that as well. "Till the end of our school year. If there is no attack, they will return to their original positions." Harry nodded in understanding, and made to go inside to recuperate on the sleep he�d lost, feeling a little safer than he had the night before. He stopped when Dumbledore called him. "I will speak to Mr Weasley in the morn, would you mind informing him on my behalf?" Harry accepted, and began the long journey from the Front Hall to his bed. �*� Ron sleeked across the streets of Hogsmeade in his Animagus form, unclear or whether he should be scared out of his wits, or exited enough to burst out of his skin�or fur�whatever. He still couldn�t believe what Dumbledore had told him just the past morning. Cornelius Fudge and Lucius Malfoy had owled to say that they would be coming to Hogwarts in the afternoon "to inspect the safety measures of the school." Fudge and Malfoy both coming to survey Hogwarts security? Both Harry and Hermione�after he�d told them�had hypothesized that Fudge had been called by the Dark Side, and they were both terrified of the idea. The three of them had already completely lost respect for the Minister of Magic in fourth year, when he�d announced that he would fake being blind, shun Harry�s truth, and keep saying that Voldemort was dead and that he could not have possibly risen to power again. If now he had been attracted by the Death Eaters�well, it would complicate matters greatly. Especially because Dumbledore seemed to believe he had. Why send Ron to spy on them if not? In any case, sneaking around Hogsmeade, when it wasn�t a weekend where students were allowed to visit, was not an easy task. The village seemed nearly deserted, and even with the red light given from the setting sun, didn�t do much to hide his shiny red fur, forcing him to hide in dark corners. And that was exactly what he�d been doing at the moment. He was sitting in an alleyway across from the Three Broomsticks�where Malfoy and the Minister had ducked only minutes prior�waiting for something that would let him slip into the tavern unnoticed. Problem was: what? And then he saw it�or rather him. A traveller�probably an Auror in disguise (many of them roamed the streets of Hogsmeade, hoping to catch some Death Eaters out for either Harry or Dumbledore)�making his way to the tavern, grasping the handle of the front door. Without a second to think, Ron ran across the empty streets, trying to keep anyone from seeing him, and slipping between the folds of the man�s robes. There! He was in. Not losing any time, he ducked under the darkness of a table�s legs. Only two tables over were Fudge and Malfoy. Waiting for the right moment when nobody would be looking his way, he ran from his hiding spot to his destination just as Hagrid slammed the door opened and called for a strong ale. Dumbledore had probably sent him to distract people�s attention, so that a red weasel would go unnoticed. For a while, the two sitting at the table were quiet, possibly suspecting the half giant of being a spy, but when they saw the burly man sit at the bar with a large cup of ale, they turned back to their conversation, unawares of the real spy that was lying not too comfortably between their feet. "We have nothing to worry about," he heard Lucius Malfoy�s snobbish monotone, "we are nearly ready for the attack." Fudge�s voice was nervous in reply. "That Severus Snape better choose his sides quickly, or he�ll be blown up, just as Karkaroff was." Karkaroff! The ex-Death Eater from Durmstrang during the Triwizard Tournament. Malfoy�s monotone was as confident as ever. "The breaching will be successful even without him." To be continued. Author�s ramblings: I�m happier with this than I was with the last, but there was really not much interaction between characters, just setting up the action. Don�t worry though, tormented feelings, discussions with Snape and Lily�s diary will be with you in the next chapter, so keep following. If you have any kind of opinion on this, let me know at [email protected] or simply leave a review. Thank you Pearl |