The Boys Who Lived

CHAPTER 20

Harry, Neville, Luna, and Pavarti spent the early morning hours exercising and doing Katas as usual then they rounded it out with a general two on two with with Neville against Harry, and Luna against Pavarti using basic Taekwondo maneuvers mixed with some Karate in there here and there. But this time they weren’t alone. This time Cedric, Fred, George, Padma and Susan joined them for most of it. The only one not joining in seemed to be Hermione. And try as they might they couldn’t get her to wake up for it so they left without her that morning. With Harry in the lead they all did the same steps the same movements and the same stretches. It was only when it came to actually duel fighting that one person was left out so Cedric decided to step back but Harry was having none of that. He asked him why and Cedric said because he was so much bigger he might hurt one of the younger ones and the twins were already dueling each other.

Harry just rolled his eyes and drug Cedric over to Susan and told him that this is to be his dueling partner, but Cedric was standoffish and kept saying he would hurt her, so she round house kicked him in the back of the head, which caught his attention.

“Cedric, she has been training with us since she was six, Neville and I would gladly duel against her, she can really whup ass, don’t believe me…try an all out fight with her. If you can hold your own after two minutes then you can walk away, if not your staying put, got it…” Harry stated.

Cedric looked doubtful but nodded.

And the battle was on, kick after kick, punch after punch, they were fast, they were slow and calculated, they were wild and out of no where, the best he could do was block, he tried to get a good hit in on occasion but she dodged each one and came back with something hard and powerful that he didn’t expect each time. Swiping his feet out from under him over and over again. He would go to kick and bam…on his ass. He would go to throw a punch and bam he would be on his back having been thrown over her shoulder.

“Time.” Harry called and Susan reached down and helped Cedric up from the ground. “Well Cedric, do you honestly think you would hurt Susan any more?”

“I’m more worried about me at this point than I am her now, geez….” Cedric smiled at Susan and shook her hand.

“Okay, you have your sparing partner, a good sparing partner is someone we can learn from and teach to as well so don’t be afraid to go all out on her, she can take it. I have fought with her many a times, and we have both scraped each other off the walls, I can tell you that. She is a good student and an excellent teacher, so take the time to learn what it is that she has to teach, you might find it makes you a better fighter.” Harry said, “now have some fun.”

Harry went back over to where Padma and Pavarti were fighting in the style they had learned when they were young or at least the feminine side of the marital arts from where they were raised, he had never really watched them use it full out before and it was definitely interesting. It had a lot of tumbling involved in it. Very acrobatic. Unfortunately it was for females, he would love to learn that style of fighting.

Then the bell rung, “Thirty minutes till breakfast folks, everyone to the showers.” Harry called out and the Riders all gathered up their towels and water bottles and headed back up to Sirius’ room to get in their trunk and take a quick shower and change for the day. Almost everyone had their clothes already laid out and things ready for school that day so that it made getting their things for school easy. That way all they had to do was reach into their bag and everything they needed was right on top, quills, ink, parchment, books, and since today was potions dragon hide gloves, potions kit and scales. First they has Herbology, then History, Potions and finally Runes.

Harry finished with his hair and packing his trunk into his back then he packed his books and potion equipment into his bag and he was ready to go.

He went into the living area and everyone else was ready to go except for Hermione, this was getting bizarre. Missing out on early morning exercises he could see on occasion, but missing school, her, never. Then he went over to Susan and asked if Hermione had given her Medical Emergency Clearance to enter her trunk, and she said she had, he told her to use it and see if there was something wrong with Hermione.

So she did, she pressed her ring onto the emblem on the front of the trunk and there was a buzz but then the trunk opened and the ladder formed as normal. Susan climbed down and began to search the trunk for Hermione. She found her in her bedroom on her bed in a fetal position, rushing to her it took all of three minutes and a few scans to figure out what was wrong, Susan grabbed the empty potion bottle from the night stand and rushed back to the ladder and reached out to Cedric, “She needs another pain relieving potion, quickly.”

He immediately got out his trunk and rushed down to get another potion.

“Pain relieving potion? What’s wrong with her? Is she okay? Do we need to contact Madam Pomfrey?” Harry asked worriedly.

“No not yet, not unless this doesn’t work right away, hopefully this will work and we can get her down to see Madam Pomfrey.” Susan stated,

“What’s wrong with her?” Harry asked again.

“Cramps, female cramps. Bad ones, she is in a fetal position and can’t get out of it, she can’t even tend to herself. Thanks, I hope this works quickly.” Susan took the potion from Cedric and rushed back down the ladder and five minutes later Susan came back up the ladder and out of the trunk, breathing a sigh of relief.

“It took effect quickly and I have got her taking a shower now, she should be ready to go in a few minutes. I gave her a muscle relaxant and a potion for cramps specifically as well. She is walking slowly, but at least she is mobile and cognitive. I don’t think she is going to make it to any of her classes today so I am going to take her down to Madam Pomfrey and let her know what potions I gave her and what condition I found her in. She will probably want to keep her overnight, or maybe for the next day or so.” Susan said as she leaned against Hermione’s trunk.

“Okay all non-essential Riders to this situation head on down to breakfast, we should be following you shortly. Thirty minutes max.” With that everyone but Cedric, Susan and Harry headed to breakfast. Another five minutes went by and a very tired looking Hermione came up the ladder, moaning as she moved. Susan helped her out of the trunk and it was plain to see she was still in pain even though she had taken a pain potion, Harry was sure glad he was a guy and didn’t have to worry with this stuff.

“Do you think you can walk all the way to the Medi-Ward or do you want us to make a stretcher and float you there?” Harry asked.

Groan… “I don’t know, right now I can walk, I’m slow but I can walk it. I don’t know about the stairs though. That ladder almost did me in.” Hermione stated looking worn out and helpless for the first time that Harry could remember. She must be really suffering.

So they all headed out, she made it about half way and had to stop, she was breathing heavy and sweating, it was getting to be too much for her, so they created a stretcher and floated her the rest of the way to the Medi-Ward.

“What in the world? What happened?” Madam Pomfrey came rushing out of her office to see the three Riders guiding the stretcher into the Ward with Miss Granger on it, she was pale and sweaty, groaning and biting her bottom lip as if she were in pain.

“It’s her monthlies Ma’am. Cramps, bad ones. This morning I found her unable to move from a fetal position and she had to be given a Pain Potion, a Women’s Bliss, and a Muscle Relaxer to get her this far. She made it about half way walking until that got to be too much on her and we had to stretcher the rest of the way here.” Susan explained quickly.

“Oh mercy, put her over here on this bed. She has always had such a horrible time with them, she usually misses a day or so of school. If she isn’t properly medicated, that is. Alright first a level two pain potion and I bet she hasn’t slept a wink all night isn’t that right Miss Granger?” Madam Pomfrey asked as she grabbed the appropriate potion and handed it to Hermione who took it without pause.

Hermione sighed as the potion began to take effect almost immediately, and shook her head. “I’ve been awake all night as usual.”

“All right then, one Dreamless Sleep as well, let’s get you caught up on your sleep and it will help you sleep through the worst of it. I’m going to proscribe one Pain Potion every six hours as needed, for the duration, and a
Dreamless Sleep each night for no more than four nights is that understood? Susan, I am assuming you are in charge of her medical needs, so I want you to let me know if things get any worse. I am going to keep her here over night for observation and release her after breakfast in the morning. Just take this note to her teachers and there should be no problem at all.” Madam Pomfrey gave Hermione the Dreamless Sleep and before you knew is she was fast asleep, thankfully. Then she proceeded with her instructions to Susan, laying out the proper doses of potions that were to go with Hermione later. Then she quickly wrote the note and handed it to Susan and explained what it was.

“We’ll give it to Padma, she is in all of Hermione’s classes. She can make sure that her teachers get it and have no problem with her being absent on her first day of school. Boy she is going to be so upset later.” Harry thanked Madam Pomfrey and the three of them headed to the Dining Hall to get some breakfast. Susan went over to Padma and explained the note, and Padma said she would take care of everything not to worry.

“Everything okay?” Neville asked.

“It is now, we got her to Madam Pomfrey and she gave her some more Pain Potion and a Dreamless Sleep and she went out like a light. We are going to have to watch her for that. If she has cramps this bad, she may be a liability on a mission, so we need to be able to keep track of her cycles.” Harry worried, he wondered if this wondered why there were so few female Riders before now, but in his group it was even numbers, so it didn’t make sense, so he didn’t know.

“Either that or make sure to have Procella around.” Luna said off dreamily.

“Huh?” Harry didn’t understand what she was getting at.

“Procella could take away all the pain, stop the muscle spasms, and allow her to get sleep at night so as long as she was near Procella she would be fine.” Luna said with a smile.

Harry face palmed it, of course. That was why it was never a problem, on missions they always had their Darcorns to make sure that they didn’t have these issues, that was the reason gender was never a problem with Riders. “You’re right Luna, I didn’t even think about the Darcorns, Procella would take care of her just fine. I wonder if we should see about getting Hermione down to see her tomorrow?” As he asked that the bell for first class went off and they all had to rush of to Herbology, not realizing what time it had gotten.

———————————————

Herbology was a little boring, it was about shrivelfigs again. The only difference between last time and this time was that instead of just getting to trim the bushes and hearing about what shrivelfigs were good for, they actually got to learn how to pluck the fruit with out bruising it. They learned little things, like never harvest more than seventy percent of the fruit at a time or you’ll send the bush into shock and kill it, to put a little regrowth paste on the end of the stem where you plucked the fruit from and it will encourage a new fruit to form quickly, sometimes you can harvest two even three times a year if you do. They also learned you have to gently pull the shrivelfig’s skin taunt then cut the fruit from the bush in order to make sure you don’t break the skin of the shrivelfig. If you do break the skin, it starts to dry up almost immediately and has to be used in a potion within eight hours or it is useless. A wasted shrivelfig is a horrible thing to see, they can’t be rehydrated or anything, they can be ground up and used in some recipes that call for ground shrivelfigs but that is all. And to tell you the truth they are very hard to grind.

After Herbology, was History of Magic and everyone filed into their usual seats and sat down taking out writing material, they knew by now how many notes they were going to have to take in this class.

“Alright class let’s get settled, we have a lot to cover today. Today we are going to talk about King Solomon, one of the greatest Wizards up until Merlin. He reigned between nine-seventy and nine-thirty-one BCE according to magical records that is. He was the greatest Demonologist and Necromancer known to exist and he was the first to use talismans as foci for spells, curses, hexes, or charms.” Then Professor Lupin turned to the side and held out his hand and out of no where an individual appeared, it was as if they walked right out of the wall, or were a part of the very wall and just walked out of it.

What an illusion, Harry decided that is exactly what it was, an illusion. It had to be. He bet that was one of those talismans that Professor Lupin was talking about, the person was definitely from the Department of Mysteries and who better to have that kind of stuff than them. They would know exactly what to do with it, and research it until they figured out everything it could or would do. And could protect it from getting into the wrong hands. Imagine if someone like Lucius Malfoy had had access to that ability, what kind of havoc he could have gotten into.

Everyone in the class clapped when the “man” appeared out of nowhere then disappeared just as easily, then Harry caught it, he tapped a ring on his right hand then he disappeared. That must be it, the talisman that Professor Lupin was talking about. The spell must be like the modern day Disillusionment Charm that Moody uses.

Harry thought for a moment and an epiphany came to him, he bet he knew what the rainbow sphere did, now it was just a matter of trying it out. He wondered how long it would last, and how to break the spell. He wrote all this down on his history notes and he felt a tug on his parchment and Luna took his parchment from him. Apparently she had been reading over his shoulder this whole time. But she wrote ‘clear sphere’ after what color sphere to use to break the spell. Hmm, interesting. He would have to try it and see. She is never wrong. And if she was right about this too, who knows, If his rainbow spare really did work like their Disillusionment Charm and lasted until you cast a clear sphere on it then they have got something pretty powerful here. Frank and Sirius hell even Remus, Moody and Amelia would be through the moon.

“The great temple of Solomon has never been found by Non-Magicals to this day, thanks to many wards that still exists to this day and have been strengthened every generation by the priests of his followings. Archaeologist have searched for the great temple and the resting place of Solomon and the Arc of the Covenant for centuries and to date they have not gotten within a hundred yards of it, thankfully. Most of the information in that temple is under the guard of a special group of priests much like our own Department of Mysteries. Some bits and pieces have escaped over the centuries though like the Book of Solomon and a few extremely rare Talismans like the one Mr. Green was just showing you a moment ago. Yes that was Mr. Green again, back in our classroom folks. Let’s here a round of applause for Mr. Green.” And everyone clapped enthusiastically for the apparently still there Mr. Green.

“One thing about Solomon that was very surprising was the number of wives and concubines he had, he had seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines. But out of all of those arrangements only fathered three children that are ever mentioned. Some would ask why so many wives, well he decided that marrying someone was the fastest way to resolve a land dispute or a border issue, or practically any issue really. When he had an issue with one of his rivals he would simply marry a royal daughter of their house and viola the argument was over. This happened over and over again. He amounted a great deal of wealth from these marriages and arrangements over the years. Something as simple as passageway through your land not a problem, let’s seal the deal with my marriage to your eldest daughter and you shall have passage way to my land and I shall have passageway to your land. Over and over again. The father of the bride would of course have to supply a dowery of appropriate amount for her and again Solomon would practically have the bride’s weight in gold, or silver or jewels, spices, bolts of fine cloth, chariots and horses, what ever the father of the bride felt his daughter was worth.” Professor Lupin began.

“Now Solomon was also one of the wisest men of his time, and many disputes were put before him to settle. One famous one was about a child, two women claimed to be the natural mother of the child and each refused to give up their claim of the child. So Solomon’s resolution to the problem was to announce that they cut the child in half and each woman get half the child, one woman shouted out to stop the blade of the swordsman and that she relinquished her claim on the child. Solomon then gave the child to her fully, stating that she must be the true mother, and that she had the ‘mother instincts’ to protect the child at all cost, even if that meant giving up the child for good, just to save the child’s life. So mother and child left quite happily and the other woman left with nothing.” He continued.

As to his magic it is said that he used magic to control several demons, and had them build his castle and several other buildings for him all under the control of one of the talismans that was made into a ring. Another ring he had allowed him to speak to the dead and another allowed him view the memories of the living. Almost like the predecessor to a pensieve perhaps. These rings were some of his most powerful object he created but were by no means the only magical talismans that Solomon created. Talismans that helped him see wards, talismans that allowed him to see auras, talismans that let you see far distances away, talismans to control the weather, talismans that allow flight without wings, talismans that to ease the pain of childbirth, it is said he even had a talismans to wake the dead but to my knowledge it has never been found.” Professor Lupin stated.

Anthony Goldstein raised his hand and Professor Lupin nodded to him. “Is it true he had a talismans that would turn wheat into gold?”

Professor Lupin shook his head, “Not that I’m aware of, he did have visions of where to dig to get the ore needed to find the gold, but that is all I am familiar with.”

Harry raised his hand and was acknowledged, “You said he had over seven hundred wives and three hundred concubines but only three kids, how is that even possible unless the guy just didn’t sleep with anyone but those three women?”

“I said reported, what that means is that the remaining children were probably girls, or from concubines. There could be five hundred kids out there that he has had and just three are of noble birth and male, the rest are either female or from concubines. Leaving them irrelevant to history and the tales of time.” Professor Lupin stated.

Luna raised her hand then, “Does that mean that women in general were devalued in that day and age?”

“Unfortunately yes, you see Solomon would have had to pay out quite a bit for one of his daughters to be wed, due to her value. But a male child could bring into the house great value since he would be wed to a daughter of equal or greater value and hence bring great wealth into the house.” Professor Lupin answered.

Pavarti raised her hand and he nodded to her, “Is it true that many times the daughters were sold as slaves instead of being prepared for marriage due to the fact that the father’s couldn’t afford to pay a bride price?”

Professor Lupin nodded, “Unfortunately yes, this is one of the reason there were so many concubines at that time. A bride might come with a certain amount of gold and spice and ten concubines as her bride price and that be acceptable as well. To them a female was a commodity, one that had a bride price and one that did not, if she did not have a bride price she was worthless she became a weight on someone’s shoulders, so get rid of her. Sell her to the slave market and make some money off of her, sell her as a concubine to a wealthy house and get something for her, or kill her, those were the options they saw. Better a concubine than a whore or dead.”

The girls in the classroom gasped at that but they had to agree with the statement in the end, better to spend your life scrubbing floors and doing laundry, than entertaining smelly soldiers that had had too much to drink, or to just to be killed outright.

Padma Patil raised her hand and Professor Lupin nodded her direction, “What if a girl ran away? What would happen if a girl decided to take her chances and run away?”

“They had people there that would track down the ‘runner’ and bring them back, first she would be branded on the right cheek as a runaway, then she would be publicly flogged while her family watched. Finally an auction would be held and the money would be split between the people who tracked her down and the father of the family. Usually the winner was somewhere in the sex slave market and wanted fresh meat cheap.”

“Eeewwe!” Several girls in the room remarked. And boys too.

Seamus Finnigan raised his hand and waited to be called upon, “I heard that the sons of the concubines had it almost as bad as the daughters in some areas. Since they didn’t have any noble birth or birth right behind them, it was either to go to work as a common laborer, hope you could apprentice with a Master somewhere, or the more frequent thing was that they were sold off young as slaves themselves either to the military or the bathhouses.”

“That is also true. A lot of the time a young boy of ten to fifteen might be sold by the concubines owner since he had no true value to the owner, and he could be sold off as a…well… boy toy to the solders in the military and go to battles and training with them, even until his late teens. Then they usually make a regular slave out of them at that point. Something you must understand is that if you didn’t have land, or a title, or were a soldier, or a priest, you were pretty much a slave of one form or another in those countries at that time. About the only real release out of it is if your magic was strong enough that someone took notice of you and took you on as an apprentice, which did happen from time to time. But unfortunately, not often enough. Many good witches and wizards lived very hard lifetimes back then, especially those with only the most basic skills or educations. They didn’t believe in educating females, or concubines, or slaves, so if you fell in any of those categories…unless you could impress them, you were pretty much lost to the pages of history.”

“Their society was basically separated into regiments, the monarchy, the priesthood, the military, the aristocrats, scholars, merchants, entertainers (which include everything from dancers, actors, poets, fighters, wrestlers, artists of all forms, and yes sex slaves), laborers, and slaves. I should say that only twenty percent of the population came from the first six categories, the other eighty percent came from the last three categories. With a heavy focus on the slave and labor area specifically. Why hire someone to do the work when you can go down and buy someone outright and be done with it? The only reason was quite frankly, you don’t have to pay taxes on a laborer, you do have to pay taxes for any slaves you own.” Professor Lupin stated. “I think we have gotten way off topic anyway, the social standing during Solomon’s reign is not exactly what we should be focusing on no matter how mentally challenging it is. We should try to focus on King Solomon as an individual and what he managed to accomplish during his lifetime.

Micheal Corner raised his hand “I once heard a story where Solomon went to a dinner in his honor at a rival’s palace. Before he drank the wine he dipped the talisman he kept around his neck into the glass, it hissed and so Solomon poured the wine into his rival’s dog’s dish and three of his hounds fought over drinking the wine, they all three dropped dead. Did he really have a talisman that could test for any poison? Or did he just get lucky and he had the right talisman on that night?”

“I have read that he had a talisman that could indeed detect poisons, whether all of them or just the most common I don’t know, but I would say someone as intelligent as Solomon would find a way to put as many poisons in there as possible.” Professor Lupin answered.

About that time the bell wrung and it was time for next class. “Okay folks our next individual is Zarathustra so make sure you have read that section by our next class.”

With that everyone grabbed their notes and writing equipment and put it away and made for the Dining Hall for Lunch.

———————————————

Everyone was gathered outside the Potions classroom waiting for the doors to open, and when they did they all headed inside and found their traditional seats. They had Potions with Slytherins again this year and everyone sat in the same configuration that they had last year. Although this year Blaise Zabini moved back to sit next to Draco Malfoy, where Pansy Parkinson used to sit. Well except there was a seat between him and Malfoy. That left Nott, Greengrass, Bullstrode, and Davis on the front row with Malfoy and Zabini right behind them.

The Gryffindor side was unchanged, Pavarti, Neville, Harry and then Luna on the front row. Then Dean Thomas and Seamus Finnegan on the next row followed by Lavender Brown in the back. Everyone came in and sat down and took out their equipment and began to get ready for class, Pavarti was so used to calibrating her scales by now she was an old hat at it and did so without even thinking about it and wiped everything down as well, just like the others did before class ever even started.

Professor Lovegood came in and saw that everyone was there so she sealed the doors and headed to her station at the center of the room. “Today we are going to make Confusing Concoction, this is basically the liquid form of a Confundus Curse. I am sure you are wondering why on this Merlin’s be damn world you would ever need a Confusing Concoction, let me give you an example. In nineteen forty one there was a skirmish outside of Manchester, Grindelwald almost certainly had them outnumbered and he certainly had them out gunned, so one of the villagers wives went into her potions lab and created this potion and gave it to one of their soldiers, they took the potion and poisoned the enemies water supply with it. Within an hour you could see the effects, they were shooting at shadows, shooting each other, shooting at birds that flew by. They didn’t know what they were suppose to be shooting at, some didn’t even shoot at all. Three hours later the camp was in total chaos, and our troops moved in and took the whole camp. Lives were saved that day, over a little bit of chaos and confusion.

The class clapped at hearing the outcome of the battle and cheered the ingenious potion maker on for being so brilliant to think of such a thing in a time of need, Simple but brilliant. Who would have thought.

Now the kids were excited about getting to make the potion and headed over to the ingredients cabinet to get their ingredients. Luna went and got everyone’s ingredients for them since she got up first. She came back first and handed everyone their little envelopes and sat down and began to sort through her own ingredients and lay them out in order of use. She started the cutting, and grinding what ingredients she needed to prepare while she waited for her base to reach a slow boil. First would be the ground Fairy cocoons, then the Pixie dust had to be measured out exact and then belladonna had to be diced carefully not to bruise the plant in the least and measured carefully, don’t want to over do it on this ingredient, next to grind the poppy seeds to a fine powder, chopped balcony and crushed bdellium, some black mustard seeds, lavender, and chamomile and finally valerian root.

After Harry had prepared everything and had his base set to a low boil he started putting in the ingredients as instructed on the board, this potion had a lot of red instructions, specifically around the handling of the ingredients that were to go into the potion. Apparently several of the ingredients were either poisonous or hallucinogenic and so you had to be careful when you handled things to make sure you didn’t come into contact with it so almost everything you had to were your dragon hide gloves with. And everything had to be measured exactly.

Perfect, the potion came out clear and odorless just like it was suppose too, almost like water, exactly like it was suppose to be, the only flavor it should have is a slight and I do mean slight lemony flavor but even that is negotiable.

Everyone was thrilled with their end work on the Confusion Concoction, Luna’s was a little more lemony than preferred but that was okay since she liked things that tasted like lemon anyway. Neville’s by comparison had absolutely no taste, color and was almost the same density as water, Professor Lovegood was most impressed indeed.

————————————————————

Hooray, it was time for ancient runes and a new teacher, Professor Babbling. She was suppose to be extremely good at what she taught, well versed in the knowledge of runes and a pleasant person to work with.

They took the front four seats as normal, this time on the left, and it was Harry, Luna, Pavarti and Neville in configuration with the girls in the middle and the guys on the outside, who knows why, but it just felt right for this class.

Apparently they were the only Gryffindors taking Ancient Runes, Harry couldn’t help but wonder what Dean and Seamus were taking instead, they probably just took Care of Magical Creatures and took two classes instead of three.

The Slytherin side had Malfoy, Nott, Greengrass, and Zabini, in that order on the front row.

He knew Runes was a lot of memorization and essays but he didn’t realize that so are people would actually show up for the class. Harry couldn’t help but wonder why they didn’t just have one class for all four houses since there were only a few from each house taking the class… never know. Maybe they tried that and it didn’t work or something. Oh well never mind, he spotted Professor Babbling heading into the class her arms loaded down with books and a smile on her face.

“Hello all. Now I know that you know I am Professor Babbling so we will dispense with the introductions, on my part that is, I am going to take roll and see if I can memorize your names by that, but don’t count on it for a while I am really bad with names it normally takes me a couple of classes to get everyone down. Okay…” and the Professor proceeded to take the roll and everyone that was suppose to be here was indeed present for the class. “Alright some of you I am sure have gone through and looked at the book and gotten a fairly good idea of what we will discuss of today but if not that’s okay.”

“Runes are not a language as a lot of people think, but an alphabet, an old Germanic alphabet. Each symbol represented a sound. Initially, there were twenty four runes in the alphabet, it was named Futhark after the first six symbols in the alphabet. Fehu (F), Uruz (U), Thurisaz (TH), Ansuz (A), Raidho (R), Kaunan/Kenaz (K). It is believed that the runes were first created around the time of Odin somewhere in Scandinavia. By the year five hundred they were being used by the Germanic peoples from the Black Sea in the south, to Norway and England in the North.” She explained.

“Norse legend states that Odin, the god of magic and wisdom was always in search of absolute knowledge, but such knowledge cannot be attained by the our rudimentary senses, it was for that fact that Odin gave up one of his eyes, his left eye specifically, in order to drink from the spring of wisdom. He then reversed the human methods of knowledge by mortally wounding himself with a spear and hanging down from a tree, the Yggdrasil, in the cold region for two days and nights. It was then that eighteen runes were revealed to him when death was drawing near. The images of the these runes were spread across the lands by the god who had conquered death and their number increased to twenty four.

“We are studying the Elder Futhark at this time and the first thing you will notice is that the runes are separated into groups or Aetts. An Aett is a group of runes that have similarities such as being associated to a specific deity or natural force like the sun, moon, water or fire. Others represent more abstract concepts like wisdom, protection or justice.” Professor Babbling explained.

“The Aett we are going to look at first is Freyja’s Aett. Now this Aett is associated with the goddess Freyja her brother Freyr. It contains eight runes in it they are Fehu, Uruz, Thurisaz, Ansuz, Raidho, Kenaz, Gebo and Wunjo.The first aett is associated with material abundance, fertility, as well as the natural world. The runes in this aett are believed to represent the forces of creation and the cycle of life.” She continued.

“The one we are going to study today is Fehu it is represented by the sound of (F) in the alphabet, and means cattle or wealth. Now some may wonder what cattle have to do with wealth, well let me tell you, in a time that how many cattle you had told how much land you had or how much ability you had to tend tend them, yes how many cattle you had told people a lot about how wealthy you were by how many head of cows you had in comparison to how rich you were. It is associated with prosperity, abundance and the natural cycles of life.

Professor Babbling went to the board and made the Fehu Rune on he board upright and reversed. “We are going to be going through each rune separately and hopefully you will gain a personal relationship with each rune in some way. Now the first rune is Fehu. This rune represents abundance, money, wealth, nourishment, and fulfillment. When you are using it in an alphabet or writing with it is represents the letter ‘F’. It can signify wealth gained, rewards delivered, or abundance achieved. Now of it is reversed it can mean things like bankruptcy, loss, ruin, falling from grace. It is ruled by the Zodiac symbol of Aries which makes sense, dramatic highs and dramatic lows. With very little middle ground. That’s right you can choose to read your runes only if they turn right side up, not which way they are facing, or you can add the extra dimension of knowledge by which way are they facing. To you or away from you. But it is up to you if you choose to read them that way or not.” She then erased the reversed one.

“Now what I want you to do for me is to do a little research into the first Aett and pick out one Rune that you feel speaks to you and do a essay on it. I don’t expect more than twenty inches so it won’t be that long, but I do expect some effort here. Give me a little effort, tell me why it speaks to you, why it makes a difference to you, what it stands out to you. I want to know from your personal point of view why it holds a special meaning. In other words I don’t want some regurgitated book words that you found in the library, Now it is fine to cite where you found your information that helped you form your conclusions, but please let it be your conclusion. I want to know what is going through your head.” She said just as the bell rang, Harry thought this would end up being a cool class, it was simplistic and basic so far but that is how it was suppose to start out.

At dinner they talked bout what Rune they all thought they would work on both boys thought they would go with Thurisaz, protective nature, courage and the ability to face the challenge definitely sounded like them. While Luna was more leaning to Gebo, generosity and partnerships, the exchange of energy and resources sounded much more to her liking, and Wunjo sounded much more to Pavarti’s personal preference, joy, success, and attaining your personal goals. Yeah that sounded much better to her.

The next morning Harry and Neville half carried a weak and sore Hermione down to Procella only to met half way by Procella and Karma as they trotted up to meet them. Procella was throwing her head back and forth like she was mad at them for making her human walk down to meet her when she could have easily walked up to meet her, foal and all. One touch of her horn on Hermione’s midsection and Hermione breathed a sigh of relief and stood up straight for the first time in two days. In no time at all she was petting her beautiful Darcorn telling her how magnificent she was, how much she appreciated her.

Harry looked over to Neville and they both shared the same thought, they should have thought of this first thing. Next time though they aren’t going to make such a stupid mistake, hopefully there won’t be a next time. Hopefully Hermione will think ahead and be prepared for this, just in case.

Apparently whatever it was that Procella did lasted for three days since it was only after the third day Hermione was complaining again at breakfast again, and before she could sit down at the table she was up and running out the door to the stables, to her Procella. She was back and sitting down to eat before the bell rang for classes to begin, smiling up a storm. All she would say is “Mum is going to be so jealous.” She giggled as she ate a bite of eggs and bacon.

That was the first morning Harry actually paid attention to how Ron was behaving. He wouldn’t eat anything that Percy wouldn’t put on his plate and he wouldn’t eat until Percy told him he could, he guessed it was because Percy was the oldest member of their household present, but he ate slowly and methodically, all careful like, taking one bite at a time and paying attention to what was on his plate and only what was on his plate. He didn’t talk to anyone else or try to converse with anyone during meal time, he just ate. From what the twins said he was doing okay in his classes, keeping up and all, he did all the work that was expected from him and didn’t complain at all. In fact Harry hadn’t heard anything from the guy at all since he had gotten back, nothing. He though that once he had gotten into Gryffindor that something would break loose and he would be able to be back to his old obnoxious self at least partially, but he wasn’t. Made you really wonder what they did to him over at Durmstang.

They had almost managed to get through with the first week of classes it was Friday and time for Care of Magical Creatures.

And what a class it was, it was on Winged Horses. Specifically the Abraxan they are about the size of an adult elephant so he was only able to bring three to class but they were beautiful, a friend of Professor Lovegood’s has a herd in Italy and let him borrow them for his class this year so he was enjoying his time with them. It was a stallion, a mare and a foal. They were cream beige in color with creamy white mains and tails, their mains and tail hair could be used in potions of all kinds and was extremely coveted by potion makers. Their coloring was very similar to that of a palomino except that they had fiery red eyes, and hoves that were the size of dinner plates. The most famous herd of Abraxan is owned by Olympe Maxine, the Headmistress of Beaubatons, she had a herd of twelve.

“Now according to the Ministry of Magic they are a level XXXX creature, but to be honest I don’t see why. Give them some single malt whiskey to drink and all the apples and oats they can eat and they are your friends for life. They are extremely loyal and very easy to work with but you must maintain a firm hand with them. They do not respect someone that is too wishy washy or too soft. Strength is what they respect.” Professor Lovegood stated.

Harry and Neville walked up to the corral to get a better look at the magnificent beast. And they did something unexpected, well the Stallion and the Mare did, and the foal sort of did it, they all three bowed to the two of them. Harry looked to Neville and he didn’t know what to do either, they looked over to their stables and could see their Darcorns waiting to see what they would do, so Harry did what he thought any dignitary would do when greeting a visiting dignitary he bowed back as did Neville. Luna, Pavarti and Susan did the same. This seemed to really please the Darcorns and the Abraxans and shocked Professor Lovegood half out of his wits. He had never seen such behavior out of these mighty beast. Apparently them being Riders stood for quite a bit even in the far off lands of Italy. Harry made a quick note to tell Padma and Hermione, the twins and Cedric, how to treat the mighty beasts when they see them.

It was then that Luna noticed the mare had a cut on her hind quarters, probably from a briar or bit of fencing, well Luna couldn’t have that, she spoke to Ventus for a moment and the gentle mother came over and touched her horn to the four inch gash on the giant horse’s hind quarter and with a whirl of glittery gold it was all healed.

The next thing you know the mare is pushing her foal over towards Luna and of course Luna is loving all over it and telling the mother how beautiful it is and how proud she should be to have such a gorgeous foal. Then she pushed the little foal over to Luna again, Harry called out “I don’t think she was searching for a compliment Luna, I think you just got yourself a new foal.”

Luna’s eyes got big and she looked at the mare who nodded, “Oh my, I am honored. You have no idea how honored I am, not only at her beauty but the fact that you trust me with your foal. Thank you. I shall name her Fantasy. What do you think little one, is that an appropriate name for you?” The foal seemed to like her new name and pranced around in front of her mother and father, who were nodding and pawing the earth in approval.

Professor Lovegood stood over to the side and simply shook his head, now an Abraxan, he had stopped asking what next after the Darcorns but now his daughter had brought home an Abraxan, how was he going to explain this to Antonio. Oh well he had several cases of wine he could trade him for the young foal and a few potions that he knew would help him out as well.

Harry wondered how Ventura would get along with the new foal well he didn’t need to. Ventus immediately introduced Fantasy to Justice and the two of them pranced and played together all around the corral. It was interesting to watch at first, Justice bowed to the Abraxan and the Abraxan foal looked over to it’s mother to see what to do, when she nodded, the little foal bowed back. After that they were friends immediately, then he introduced Fantasy to all his other friends, Mischief, Mayhem and Karma. The foals all raced around the corral playing tag or something like that and the larger Abraxan played right along with them. She was having a blast. The mare nodded her head and whinnied, letting Ventus know that she approved and just stood back and watched.

By that time Professor Lovegood had pretty much loss control of the class and decided to tell just a few bits and pieces he knew about Abraxans and then dismiss the class with the assignment to do a ten inch report on the magnificent beasts, including a drawing, ready for next class.

Everyone stayed down there until it was time for lunch and then they headed back.

Cedric laughed his ass off when Harry told him what had happened, if it could happen to anyone it would happen to Luna. For a mother Abraxan to just hand over her young to her like that meant that Luna had really impressed her. That she had gone above and beyond what was necessary as a dignitary (Harry had explained that bit) and that she had gotten her own personal mount to heal the young Abraxan mare was considered selfless and noble, way beyond what was expected of her. When Harry thought of it that way it kinda made sense he guessed, but that was just Luna, she was always like that. Susan just smiled, said she couldn’t wait to meet Fantasy.

“I’m glad that the Professor knows where to get Abraxan Mare’s milk from and have it delivered quickly. Otherwise Fantasy would have to make do with Darcorn milk and I don’t know how that would settle on her stomach. I wonder how old she is, we should have asked while were down there?” Harry stated,

Luna nodded her mouth full of halibut, she loved it when they serve fish, about the only meat she would eat any more was fish and fowl. And when she was ten and made friends with the chickens in the yard that almost spoiled the fowl part. But she realized there was a difference between her friends and the chickens that they were feeding everyone, so it was alright. But it took almost a year to convince her of that. Fish she had never had a problem with, just don’t let her go down to an aquarium any time too soon. Thankfully, she doesn’t remember too much from the time they went down to the aquarium when she was almost six, she wouldn’t eat fish for three years after that. She kept saying they were trying to eat one of her friends. And then start crying until dinner was over with. It was horrible. Pretty much she went vegetarian for almost three years when she was just six years old and refused to eat any meat, or fish. And it had better not look like meat when she saw it, like a Christmas goose, she will just run from the table in tears, just cut it up in the other room and serve it to everyone else then give her her monster salad. She will be happy.

When they were setting up their trunks she was confused about what to get then Harry told her to get fruits and veggies, cheeses, dried fruit, nuts, trail mix, beans and peanut butter, some breads, salad fixings of all types, some fish if she wants it, some chips for fish and chips, and of course one of her favorites mashed potatoes, rice, pasta, all different kinds, pre-made sauces, spices, gravy mixes, and pudding of all kinds. Oh and as a special treat cereal or granola, she likes to sit and munch on dry cereal. Then get all the different fruit juices she would ever need and she was done. She loved his ideas and had raced off into the store to get everything he had listed and a few things more here and there but she now had a fully stocked kitchen for herself that will make her happy. She had been particularly proud of the vegetarian burgers that she had found and placed in her cold cabinet. And the vegetarian chicken, beef and pork, that she had also found. But it was dried, you had to reconstitute it to make stuff out of it. She hoped it tasted good, but either way it would work better than the real thing.

Harry pulled his mind back on task, and suggested that after classes they all head down to check out the newest member of the herd. They all agreed so after the last class was finished Fred, George, Hermione, Susan. Padma, and Cedric all headed down with them, Harry had made sure to let them know to bow when they meet the new Abraxans and everyone just nodded. When they got down to the stables the Abraxan were out in the corral and the Abraxan foal was just prancing around.

As soon as they got within a few feet of the fence they all bowed and the Abraxan bowed back. The Abraxan were apparently pleased with this reception since they allowed Fred and George feed the stallion whisky soaked apples and Susan and Padma held the pail as the mare drank her fill of whisky. Hermione wanted to do something so she grabbed an apple and tried to give it to the young foal but it shied away from it, only to have Luna pick out a nice juicy whisky soaked one and give it to Fantasy.

“It has to be soaked in whiskey or it will upset her stomach,” Luna stated simply. As she gave the little foal another juicy whiskey soaked apple.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t know.” Hermione said embarrassed.

“That’s alright, now you know. Just like Darcorns have a special diet, so do Abraxan. Abraxan have to have all their food soaked in single malt whisky and the only thing they will drink is single malt. I don’t know why specifically only that those are the facts.” Luna smiled her normal dreamy smile and kissed the soft muzzle of the Abraxan foal before her.

“She really is gorgeous. How old is she?” Hermione asked.

Luna looked over to the mare and asked, the mare pawed the earth four times, “Apparently, she is four months old. Wow, I would have guessed she was a little older than that, she is so big for her age. Must be the bloodline that she came from.” The foal was around three foot ten inches and weighed probably a little over two hundred pounds.

Professor Lovegood could just see more of his good wine flying out the window.

The Riders hung around the stables for a couple of hours, either with their Darcorns, or with the Abraxans or both. And then headed up to the Castle for dinner. Tomorrow was going to be a bit busy, for some more than others. Like Cedric had this regular exercise and dueling early in the morning, then at ten AM until lunch he had Karate, then after Lunch he had First Aid class until four PM, then after that he had his first Archery lesson until Dinner time so he had a full docket pretty much tomorrow. Well except between breakfast and ten AM. Knowing Cedric he will be doing homework during that time.

————————————————————————

Their first First Aid class was held down in a converted solitary confinement room that was in the Medi-Ward. All of the Riders were there as well as Daphne Greengrass of Slytherin, Roger Davies of Ravenclaw, and Dean Thomas from Gryffindor.

“Normally I don’t teach this class to anyone less than fourth year but since there were so many wanting to take the class I made an exception. Now most of you know who I am, but for those that do not, I am Madam Poppy Pomfrey the on staff Medi-Witch. I have worked with Hogwarts for twenty three years, so I probably saw some of your parents come through those doors in their time.” She stated and indicated to the doors of the medi-ward.

“First of all, first aid isn’t just about learning a bunch of spells and being done with it. It is about memorizing the different parts of the body and knowing where things should be. I mean if a person has a broke leg, you need to know that it is the femur or the tibia before you can tell me what is going on or know how to fix it. So this first section is about memorization and learning the different systems of the human body. The first system we are going to learn is the skeletal system, or the bones. The human body has two hundred and six bones in it and one hundred and six of them can be found in the hands and feet, now that does include the wrists and ankles mind you but still that is a lot when you think about it. The smallest bone in the human body is the Stapes, it is in your inner ear, it translates sounds we hear into waves that the brain can understand. The largest bone is the Femur which is the upper thigh bone. Now a lot of people think bones are the strongest thing in the human body but they would be wrong, teeth are actually stronger. Bones are actually a living tissue, they have blood vessels and collagen in them that keep them strong, but they can rejuvenate and rebuild themselves every seven years. Basically you get a whole new skeletal system every seven years.” She explained some really interesting facts about bones and everyone was writing as quickly as they could.

“Inside each bone there is a spongy material call bone marrow, this marrow produces up to two million red blood cells every second, these are the cells that take oxygen to the rest of the parts of your body. Now an interesting fact I found in this months Medi-Witch Premier was that the Femur, the largest bone in the body was meant to handle a great deal of weight, in fact it can hold up to twenty five hundred pounds before breaking, and is incredibly hard to break, now by contrast the toes are easily broken, and almost everyone has broken at least one toe during their lifetime, and the only thing Non-Magicals can do for that is to tape it up and let it heal on it’s own. Thankfully, we have a Bone Mend spell to make sure people don’t have to go through weeks of pain and discomfort when it isn’t necessary.” Madam Pomfrey went over to a chart of her’s and picked up a stack of parchment she had on the table in front of the chart.

“This is a diagram of the hands. The human hands and wrist have fifty four bones in it and what we will be doing for this class and next will be going over the bones in the hand. The parchment I am handing out had a diagram of the human hand and wrist, what I want you to do for your next class is to take this parchment and label correctly the different bones that you will see here. Now I am sure you are wondering why you need to know all these technical terms when all you want to do is cast a simple diagnostic and put a plaster on a boo boo. Well for one those diagnostic charms all use technical terms, so instead of saying upper thigh it is going to say femur, instead of saying ring finger it is going to say third proximal phalanx and the last thing you want to do is run around trying to find a book with the information in it to decipher what those scans mean while your patient is in pain or may be bleeding out.” Madam Pomfrey picked up the parchments and began to hand them out, each one had a hand on it with the bones drawn on it very clearly and there were little lines going out from it to the side where you could write the name of each bone on it.

“Any questions so far?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

Cedric raised his hand. “I was told once that Non-Magicals method of healing a broken bone like an arm or leg was to set it in an arm or leg was to set it in plaster and leave it that way until it healed naturally, sometimes for weeks like that. They were just having me on weren’t they?”

Madam Pomfrey shook her head, “Unfortunately not, Non-Magicals have no means to heal a broken bone, so their best method to ‘heal’ it is to immobilize it and allow it to heal naturally. You think that is barbaric, when it comes to a broken finger or toe they simply tape the broken digit to the next one to it that is not broken and let it heal that way. And it may take up to six weeks to heal a broken toe, due to the stress you put it under. So be glad you are a Magical and we have magic and the spells to fix those things so quickly.”

Susan raised her hand. “Will we be learning things like symptoms and illnesses?”

“That is more for the advanced first aid class, this class is more for wound care, triage, and what to do until help can get to you. Now if you take the advanced first aid class when it is offered yes definitely, but right now I don’t have a class of that course being offered.” Madam Pomfrey stated.

Harry raised his hand. “Will we learn how to triage patients correctly?”

“Yes you will, if they are breathing and not bleeding they can wait is my motto, check through everyone else first then go back through another round. Don’t take the one that is screaming over the one that is quiet just because they are screaming, someone maybe in a panic or have a very low pain tolerance, while the quiet one is bleeding internally. Never take things at face value, take two things first, bleeding and breathing. Then scan them all equally. At that point you treat them on a list that we will set up and I will teach you how to triage appropriately. Someone with a fist size burn on their shoulder and going into shock can be in more of a life threatening situation than someone that is bleeding from a broken leg. Triage is always important. The hardest part about triage is if you know the victims and you are having to decide to put someone you don’t like ahead of someone you love. And trust me, it may happen.” Madam Pomfrey explained.

Luna raised her hand. “Will we be giving out any potions?”

“At some point we will be going over the basic of when to give out basic potions, including pain potion, nausea potion, calming draught, and headache potion, I will also teach you how to notate that you have given a potion to a patent and why you did so, so that the medi-witch or wizard on staff will know what they are looking for when you get the patient to them for real help. Remember folks this is just basic first aid. I realize the vast majority of you are Riders and are looking for training for when you are out where you won’t have any help for a while. But that doesn’t change the fact this is only basic…first aid. What I am teaching you will only help you until the real help gets there.

Dean Thomas raised his hand. “I am trying to gather together a good first aid kit, do you have any suggestions?”

Madam Pomfrey nodded, “Before this class is over with you should have an excellent list of things to keep in a first aid kit, and things to keep handy, and that is true for all of you. The first thing that I can say it that most people forget that they are witches and wizards in times of crisis. A simple Ferula will bandage up just about anything by spinning a bandage out the tip of your wand to where ever you have it pointed. Having plenty of bandages on hand is great and always handy but honestly in times of great need not really practical. One spell, Ferula, takes that away. Now Mr. Longbottom come up here you’re going to be my wounded person today.” She motioned for Neville to come up front and to sit on the table at the front.

“Alright now first we need some cotton to absorb the bleeding so ‘Bombacio’, then we need to wrap the gauze around the the wound to keep the cotton in place so, ‘Ferula’. And there you have it. Now if it is the head simply wrap your wand around the head like so, and the ‘Ferula will follow right along with you. Now if you want to get down and dirty with it, it should be ’Sarcasmus’, followed by putting the cotton padding on so ‘Bombacio’ and finally ‘Ferula’.”

“Pavarti raised her hand to that. “What was that first one again, and what was it for?”

“Sarcasmus. It means to disinfect or sterilize. If you don’t know how long it will be before you will have help there I recommend you use it every time, I honestly use it every time anyway simply because I hate the idea of putting a bandage on a dirty wound anyway.” Madam Pomfrey stated. “The only problem with that one is that it may start the wound to bleed a little if dirt or debris have been clogging up the wound and have kept it from bleeding for a while and you remove all of that gunk and now it is free to bleed fresh it might get a little messy, but believe me, it is better off than with all of that garbage in there bringing germs and Merlin knows what into the picture.”

Fred raised his hand. “Will we learn how to tend to things like snake bites or things such as that?”

Madam Pomfrey nodded. “When it involves a bee sting, wasp sting, snake bite, spider bite, anything with venom, there is one simple spell…’Sugere’. This will pull all the venom or poison out of the bite. The hard part is the you must find the spot that the patient was actually bitten. Do your scans, read what it says, and then use that information to find the bite, open a clear visible path to the bite, and point your wand to the bite and simply state ’Sugere’.”

This class was so interested in learning she was thrilled, they asked all about what they would be learning and wanted to learn it all. Plus more. This was going to be a brilliant year, these students were some of her most challenging and enthusiastic that she had ever had, undoubtedly because of the whole Riders thing but they were all brilliant in their own right any way. She had each student come up and practice doing bandages on her or Neville, and then had Neville practice on her. And then it was time to end for the day.

Well for the rest of it was, for everyone but Susan, Fred, George and Cedric they were taking Archery. And they had ten minutes to be there.

---------------------------------

The next several days turned into weeks quickly, and weeks turned into a month, before they knew it it was time for Halloween all over again. Halloween and their very first Hogsmeade trip. Everyone was extremely excited, their first time getting to go to Hogsmeade together and all.They all dressed up in their black Basilisk hide outfits and met outside of the main entry hall as soon as they got changed after Care of Magical Creatures. Since no one else had a class the rest of the day they had decided to have lunch in Hogsmead and make a day of it. The twins and Cedric both had early morning and mid morning classes but nothing after that so they were free for the afternoon too. Hermione and Padma didn’t have any classes on Friday until four o’clock so they were good. Everyone was so excited, they were all making plans about where to go and what they wanted to see. They headed in too and finally all got to the entry hall and then they all headed out, standard formation Tier one in the first carriage, Tier two in the second carriage and Tier three in the third carriage and they all made it down to the village without a problem.

Everyone decided to eat first so they headed to the the Three Broomsticks and they grabbed two tables and put them together and sat down to order. They had made it through about half their meal when they heard a commotion coming from outside. Rosmerta went over to the door and looked outside, “What in the name of Heavens…?”

“What’s up there girl?” One of the patrons asked her, jovially.

“Looks like there is a bunch of people fighting out there…” Was all she got out before Harry was out of his seat and at the door looking out.

“Damn, Death eaters. Susan call you Aunt, Cedric Contact McGonagall, Padma set this place up as triage station one, from the looks of it we may need more than one. Hermione let no one near that Fireplace that you don’t recognize it will be a one way trip to the castle. Padma contact Madam Pomfrey tell her the situation and tell her we will be having wounded coming through in ten. Burn and spell. Tier two on my tail, tier three guard and triage. Tier one with me.” With that Harry raised his hand and the riders from each group did exactly what they had been ordered to do.

The man at the bar watch dumbfounded as a thirteen year old boy took charge of everything and did everything so logically and quickly, and made it seem so easy. When much older and wiser adults would have been confused and lost about what to do. He just sat there with his mouth hanging open and his eyes staring at the closed door.

“Mr, if you want to help, you could stand there at the door and open it for the wounded that are going to be coming through in a few minutes.” Hermione said, as if reading his mind. The man smiled and nodded, okay he could do that, he took out his wand and stood by the door, watching through the crack in the door. And sure enough not two minutes later here came Neville half carrying a first year through the door. The man swung the door wide open and Neville passed the boy off to Padma and raced out again.

——————————————————————

Susan pointed her wand at a clear place in the Three Broomsticks “EXPECTO PATRONUM” her mighty lioness roared to life as it leapt out of her wand and prowled around the room looking for danger, when it couldn’t find any it went back over to Susan and she said “I need you to take a message to my Aunt Amelia Bones. ‘Priority one to Senior Director Bones! Priority One to Senior Director Bones! Death Eaters in Hogsmead! Approximately thirty! Students present! Riders present! Taking on wounded! Priority One to Senior Director Bones!’ Now hurry!” With that Susan sent off her patronus and the huge lioness left through the door of the restaurant and was gone.

“Me next,” Cedric spoke up. “EXPECTO PATRONUM!” And a beautiful Darcorn mare pranced out of his wand, hmmm when did that change, it used to be a badger. When the Darcorn couldn’t find anything to chase or challenge, it trotted over to Cedric and stared at him for a moment then Cedric stated, “I need you to take a message for me to Headmistress Minerva McGonagall of Hogwarts, ‘Headmistress McGonagall, Death Eaters are attacking Hogsmead! Approximately thirty! Students injured, sending students through to Madam Pomfrey in ten minutes! Need Assistance Immediately! Riders Present but Out Numbered severely!’ Ok take that to her. Thank you.”

While they were doing that Padma was on the floo over to the Medi-Ward at Hogwarts. “Madam Pomfrey! Madam Pomfrey are you there?”

“Who is that? Better yet where is that?” Madam Pomfrey came into the room looking all around, and seeing no one,

“It’s me Madam Pomfrey on the floo, Padma Patil, Hogsmeade is under attack. Death Eaters, about thirty of them. We have students and villagers wounded, we will be sending the first through in about ten minutes, There will be burn and spell damage, don’t know the severity yet still doing triage as we speak.” Padma stated,

“Do you have any numbers on the injuries yet?” Madam Pomfrey asked.

“Unknown, so far minor injuries seven but they are pouring in quickly projected rate of five per minute over the next thirty minutes, between students and villagers your looking at around one hundred and fifty injuries, primarily minor. Only twenty percent to be major so approximately, thirty cases that will be major.”

“Send all Major Cases through Priority One, understand, Priority One! And then send them through. Start triage and stay safe, I’ll get some people from St. Mongo’s here to help on this end, just send them through as you can.”

“Yes Ma’am, On it,” Padma pulled her head out of the floo and looked around at the nearly full room of people now. And began to take triage of those around closest to her and separate them according to need. Those that just needed to be vacated to the school were being routed through to Professor Flitwick’s office so that was clearing up a lot of space in the restaurant, but that still left the wounded. Most of the people were just minor cuts and bruises, but some had smoke inhalation and some bad looking burns so she was sending them through priority one.

Susan and Padma had a system worked out, they would scan each person that came through the door and put a tag on them once they were scanned, red meant priority one, right straight to the floo, yellow meant they could wait for a bit, green meant they could be routed through to Flitwick’s office and out of triage.

Susan was responsible for color coding each individual and putting them through to the right place as quickly as possible. Which was going just fine until this overindulgent peacock who thought that since his nephew was a fifth year Slytherin prefect; that he should be allowed to go in front of the other injured individuals blustered about. Although as far as Susan could tell the only injury the man had was a scratch on his right cheek and a bruise to his ego. When she refused to let him through he pushed her aside and stomped right into Hermione’s wand which was glowing at the tip.

“Please take a seat Sir, I believe my companion asked you nicely several times to wait your turn. "Your turn isn’t here yet, we will be sure to notify you when it is though… have no doubt about that, contrary to popular belief, Sir... we do not want you around here any longer that absolutely necessary. You see we want you out of our site just as fast as humanly possible. So have a little bit of patience and we will make that happen. Keep irritating people and it will only prolong the process and distract us from doing our job so you will be stuck here with us longer. Now you don’t want that to happen now do you?” Hermione then motioned with her wand towards an empty chair and pointed for the man to take a seat and didn’t lower the light on her wand until he did.

Sidney wasn’t a man to back down easily but he gulped, staring at the light at the tip of the young girls wand and having no clue what she could have her wand loaded with he did the only logical thing he could, he sat down, and waited.

“Go Hermione.” Fred whispered as he passed Hermione on his way back out of Three Broomsticks to get his next person.

————————————————

“…Death Eaters in Hogsmead! Approximately thirty! Students present! Riders present! Taking on wounded! Priority One to Senior Director Bones!” Amelia was already in motion, the minute she heard ‘Priority One!’ Their own secret code for life or death situation, help needed immediately or else.

“Son of a bitch, Hogsmeade. Do we have anyone covering Hogsmeade today? If so, who? If not, why?”Amelia was shouting out across the floor of the reception room where the message had just played. Right in the middle of the introductions to the life as a Auror “Welcome to your Graduation Day” Celebration. Moody stood up and said, “No one is covering Hogsmead, because Fudge pulled our people off of Hogsmeade and pulled them over to his garden party an hour ago.

“Fudge be damned. I’ll have his ass for this. I’ll call the media on him for this. Alright I need cadet group A, B and C to follow me through to the Apparition sites, I want my group to go with Moody merge in front of The Three Broomsticks in ten.” With that half the room cleared out and the other half of the room sat there wondering what was going on and what they should do.

They came into Hogsmead from the west side of the town, unfortunately the exact same side of town that the heaviest fire was happening at ground level. They took on heavy fire almost immediately, one young woman was shot in the chest by a piercer, went right through her shoulder luckily. Bad aim. But they got the shooter. Took two shots and they had him down.

The next one had two kids pinned behind a barrel in front of the barber shop but they managed to get the two kids out and away from there and they managed to get one of the perps down, the other Tonks shot in the knee cap which would have been great if she hadn’t have been aiming for his shoulder. (But she never did say anything.)

They were sticking mainly to the blown out storefronts and they spotted three more perps in a store trying to molest a young woman, and they put finished to that right quick, or should I say Moody did. He never did like a man that would force himself on a woman, especially a woman young enough to be his daughter.

They found several students and a few villagers were wounded and they were moving over to the Three Broomsticks. Down an alley four men were had two sales clerks cornered behind some crates and between the Volley of curses that cadet group ‘A’ threw at them and what Amelia tossed in there for good measure there were sunk.

Moody was dragging one by the back of his jacket and pushing another along with his wand. “These two wanted to join our idiots training course, no training necessary, of course. Sit down you idiot.” Moody pushed the one walking to the ground and swung the one he was dragging around so he was sitting beside him.

“Most of the shooting seems to be coming from up high, let’s see if we can get on a roof top somewhere or second story. Oh and knock these idiots out, we’re not recruiting right yet.” Amelia stated.

—————————————————————————

Neville and Harry had found a group of children that were cut down like a rick of firewood over by Honeydukes, all were bleeding heavily and each one was moaning and crying, He didn’t know if this would work but he would never know unless he tried, Harry put each child on a stretcher then tied each stretcher to the one in front of it, then cast a feather weight charm on each of them, then harnessed them all to him and then he took off running. They all followed him as he ran down to the Three Broom Sticks. As soon as he got to the door of the restaurant he released the featherweight charm and the follow me charm and then handed the kids inside one at a time, having Fred and George set them up along one wall.

“Have you seen who is doing this all?” The man at the bar asked.

“Death Eaters, about thirty of them. They’re cutting down the kids faster than we can get the kids inside the buildings.” Harry said as he turned and headed out with Neville,Luna, Pavarti, Fred and George on his heals.

“He’s serious?” The man paled.

“He would never joke about Death Eaters Mister.” Cedric said as he help a little girl into a chair and then joined the others.

Harry spotted where they were firing from, it looked like atop the Post Office. He made a motion to Neville who nodded and then he shouted “Tier two cover us.”

They then went into the Post Office and headed up the rear stairs to the third floor where the Death Eaters were making their stand. And staying low Harry, and Neville flanked by Luna and Pavarti snuck along the edge of the roof until they were within firing range of the Death Eaters. Then they let loose, Red (stunning) spheres, and Dark Green (sleep) spheres where shooting back and forth across the roof, Luna was Accio’ing wands, and Pavarti was Incarcerous’ing anyone that wasn’t on their side. Luna was grabbing wands out of the mid air and stuffing them into her bag and any she missed Pavarti was grabbing. They had a nice little system going there all in all it took maybe ten minutes to get all of the twenty that were on the roof, but where were the others.

Just as he was thinking that, Harry heard running coming up the stairs and had a red sphere ready just in case but it turned out to be Tonks who held up her hands.

“Whoah there big fellah, peace, I’m on your side remember.” Tonks laughed. “We got the other ten over by the west side of town by Gladrags. I’ll get some people up here to search them and take these ones in, ah do you happen to have their wands do you?” She noticed a very obvious lack of ‘wandage’ in the group of Death Eaters that were on the ground now.

Luna giggled and started pulling out wands out of her bag as did Pavarti. “Oops.” Luna said.

“Twenty wands and she says ‘oops’“ Tonks rolls her eyes and then takes the wands and puts them all in an evidence bag and seals it and takes it downstairs.

“Tier two go door to door search and rescue, Tier one is going to go over to Tier three and help with triage and transport.” And just like that everyone went and headed off to do exactly what was requested of them. The Three broomsticks was crowded to overflowing with kids that were being triaged and sent through to Madam Pomfrey or Hogwarts in general. If a student wasn’t injured they were being sent through to Flitwick’s floo in Flitwick’s office. For one last look over then a release to rejoin everyone in the Great Hall for a count.

When it was all said and done there were three kids missing. So Harry got out his map and checked and found the two six year Hufflepuffs in an unused classroom, that left Jeromy Snopes a fifth year Ravenclaw, he was still missing. He wasn’t on the map either, that didn’t make any sense. They started doing a door by door search of Hogsmead and finally found him, in a room above the Hogshead that was rented to a Lewis Brandshaw, a nineteen year old young man. Alberforth swore he knew nothing about a second person in the room and kicked both of them out of his establishment, saying he ran a clean place there, not a brothel. And then the Headmistress had to notify Mr. Snopes’ parents about Mr. Brandshaw’s existence, since Mr. Snopes’ was still a minor and all. To say his parents hit the roof would be taking it mildly. They immediately forbid him from ever seeing Mr. Brandshaw again, and threatened to press charges against Mr. Brandshaw if he came near their son, they even went the route of saying if they so much as heard of him contacting their son that they would call the authorities.

Then Jeromy got sick of it all and stood up for himself and said that if they didn’t back off that he would tell the authorities just exactly how much money he makes skimming off of Fudge’s books last year. “Being Fudge’s accountant does have it’s privileges doesn’t it daddy dearest.” Mr. Snopes was aghast at what his son said, he could hardly believe his ears.

“This is the way it is going to be daddy dearest.” Jeromy glared at his father, who was staring at his son wide eyed. “Lewis and I are in love, we have been for three years. We intend to get married. You will rent a small, but nice apartment or house for us here in Hogsmeade for us to have until after I graduate, you will pay for it up front in its entirety. You will not try and prevent us from seeing each other or try to come between us, if you do then all the paperwork I have copied for the last three years will make it to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. Do I make myself completely clear?”

The only thing that Mr. Snopes could do was sit there and nod. He had raised a son to always get the goods on his enemy, just in case, he just never thought he would end up being his son’s enemy.

Harry had listened to the whole thing kinda surprised after all he had been part of the search party that had looked for Jeromy when they thought he might have been hurt somewhere or perhaps captured or something. But they never expected it to turn out the way that it did. Hell they never expected the day to turn out the way that it did.

“Riders with me. We’re going over to the Medi-ward and see if Madam Pomfrey needs any help anyone have any questions?” Harry asked, and then gathered all the riders up and headed over to the Medical ward and asked Madam Pomfrey what she needed them to do.

“Start with that row by the front door, mostly cuts and bruises but disinfect, then heal it if it is minor with Episkey, or disinfect and bandage it, I will look at it later.” Madam Pomfrey was so grateful for the the help all she had was herself and two house elves right now, that were great but they only followed instructions, they didn’t know how to really make decisions on their own.

————————————————————————————

The fire blazed in the drafty of room but it still didn’t take the chill in the air away. No matter how much you stoked the flames it still had a frosty bite in the air, and it wasn’t the temperature outside that had anything to do with coldness in the room of the old mansion.

The Dark Lord was not a pleasant sight at any time but especially when he was fuming and angry, and right now he was furious. First it was fourteen of his most trusted, and now it was thirty mercenaries and new recruits. This was intolerable, who would dare to act against him so? Who would have the capability to do so? Surely not the Aurors they were a laughing stock on their best days, shooting mild stunners while his people were firing Avarda Kedarva’s at their heads no not them. The Department of Mysteries perhaps? Did they have some new weapon? Something new, or perhaps….something very old…ancient even? What weapon could it be? Could he break into the Department of Mysteries and steal it for himself?

The Dark Lord fumed from his throne like chair at the center of the ballroom that he had made his throne room. It was the biggest room after all.

“Wormtail! Wormtail! Where are you, you worthless vermin?” The Dark Lord raged.

Peter came stuttering up the side of the room towards his master as fast as he could. “I’m here, I’m here My Lord. I’m here.” He stuttered.

“You worthless piece of meat, tell me what you know of these two attacks. I want to know where my people are and what happened to my faithful people, why can I no longer find them.” The Dark Lord raged.

“The attack on Diagon Alley was going off without a hitch, then the Riders showed up and everything just seemed to stop. In a matter of two minutes our side was completely completely out-wanded and out maneuvered they are just too good at what they do.” Wormtail mumbled, twisting his shirttail between his fingers as he spoke.

“Riders, what Riders? Who are these Riders? What do they ride? They showed up and everything just seemed to stop? What do you mean by that? Two minutes and the battle was over with? How can that be? Those were my best men, my most experienced lieutenants? How many were there?” The Dark Lord was spitting in his fury.

“Yes Master, Riders, they call themselves the Riders. When they showed up they started shooting colored balls of light at our people and they just started dropping where they stood. Two minutes later the battle was over with.” Wormtail sniveled.

“Stop sniveling you fool! How many were there?” The Dark Lord bellowed, he hated it when that fool sniveled and whined, it made him sick to his stomach.

“There were seven that I saw Master.” He whimpered, which was no better than his sniveling.

“Seven, seven took out fourteen of my best!”

“Well not really, Master, only two were firing on our people, the two in front, then two on either side seemed to be holding down suppressive fire, and three behind seemed to come in as back up I guess.” Wormtail was practically in tears by now but he was doing everything but trowing up on the Dark Lord at this point. As he knew each answer he gave infuriated the Dark Lord that much more than the one before it.

“WHAT! TWO! TWO! Two individuals took down fourteen of my best trained, best skilled lieutenants! This is preposterous! Who are they? I want names!”

“They refuse to have their names published as anything but the Riders, my Master. I looked at every publication I could find. And found nothing with a single name anywhere on it. But the people seem to know who they are and are protecting them. They actually called the Aurors on me, even though I was polyjuiced at the time, because I said something negative about the Riders.” Wormtail sniffled and tried not to sound utterly pathetic. But he failed.

“You fool, you could have given yourself away and me along with you.” That earned him a nice round of Cruicio. “I want you to find out who these Riders are, where they came from, and how we can get a hold of them. Maybe we can get them on our side. And Wormtail… CRUICIO!… NO MORE MISTAKES!”

“Come Nagini the air in here is rather rancid at the moment, let’s move to the library, I wish to look up something about those colored balls he mentioned. What could they be? Just another piece of half crazed delirium of a worthless piece of putrid filth that I must put up with for now? He thought. Even his sarcastic, acidic potion master was pleasant to listen too and always interesting to talk to when it came to intelligent conversations. But now he was lowered to that piece of useless fecal matter on his throne room floor that he must sooner or later find someone to clean up that little wretch of a man.

This body he was possessing could not handle using that much magic at one time, he was trembling and sweating and he did not want anyone to see him in that condition. He hated being weak like this. He could hardly wait until he could get a body of his own. He seemed to be burning through this body faster than the last, he had to be careful or he would have to switch bodies sooner than he had planned. He wanted to keep this body until he the ritual for his new body, but at this rate he may have to find a new body to possess prior to that and work with that until the ritual. Oh the headaches he went through. Having so much magic, could sometimes be a burden he was forced to bear. Whenever he used his magic it seemed to burn up this body and rip away at what little defenses he had, even though this time he had chosen a rather strong magical body to possess. He had tried muggles which lasted only days, he had tried the average Wizard which lasted a few months, this one had lasted several months now, but he doubted it would last until the ritual. Especially if he had to continue to be faced with the incompetence of his minions.

Wormtail seemed to infuriate him more than the others right now, that man was a walking menace. But unfortunately, he was also one of the few that he was one of his most loyal. He was too afraid of him not to be. The weak, sniveling, pathetic man would crawl through broken glass if he ordered it, just to get the opportunity to kiss his shoes. Hmm that sounded like an idea. At least it would be entertaining. Hmm.

——————————————————————————

Moody was looking over at the pile of paperwork sitting before Bones and she looked about ready to rip her hair out. “What’s got you all bent out of shape?”

“They took out twenty trained mercs, Moody… twenty of them.” Bones sighed deeply shaking her head.

“And the problem with that is what?” Moody looked at Amelia and glared, “They were taking out the bad guy when they were two years old, the only difference now is they have more back up and better understanding of the game. There better trained, better skilled and damn shot better than anything we are pulling through our recruits well except one or two here or there.” Nodding towards Tonks who was doing paperwork in the other corner.

“I know, I know but it doesn’t change the fact that they are thirteen years old. Thirteen years old and better than most of what we have on our streets right now.” She said sadly looking down at the dossiers that were in front of her right now, “These mercs weren’t just run of the mill hired guns they were real nasty pieces of work. Their criminal history reads like a who’s who in the ten most wanted list of almost every nation of Europe, England included. They must have costed who ever, a pretty penny.” Amelia flipped through the pages.

“The thing you have to realize is that these kids have been training non-stop since they were six, as Riders since they were eleven, as fully fledged Riders in full out regalia and formations, everything, this last year or better. Now I can guarantee those ‘kids’ take Potter-Blacks orders better than most recruits take my orders, hell I would put them up against anyone in this force except the ones in this room and Shackelbolt. Everyone else is pretty much a wash. As far as I’m concerned. And he has gotten them so well trained he can shout out Tier one, Tier two or Tier three and the order and it is followed immediately, as soon as they are released to do so. They know who they are, what is expected of them, who they are to partner with, who they are to back up, who their main gun will be, everything, it is all well trained and works smoothly and even when there is a hiccup someone does something about it immediately. Like in the Alley when Black spotted the woman and the three kids down, he called in Tier two, Tier two got there and saw that they were injured more than just a few cuts and bruises and called in Tier three. Clockwork, precision and no foulups. If we could have had that kind of precision during the war think of the lives we would have saved.” Moody ground out.

“How does he even think of things like that. He developed it all on his own from what I am to understand. Or him and Longbottom did. Those two, I told you they would be a force to be reckoned with I just didn’t expect it to be this soon. I mean they have the whole orphanage, the sex shop, then Diagon Alley, then today in Hogsmeade. And they don’t want their names mentioned, just listed as the Riders. When did they come up with that, that was brilliant. That way no one person gets more fame or glory than any other, but also so that they can’t be held for ransom, or kidnapped, or anything else. Stroke of genius that was.” She leaned back in her chair and looked at the pile of paperwork that was on her desk.

“That pile isn’t going to get any smaller by you looking at it.” Moody chuckled.

“Shut up you old fart.” She groused.

“Right back at you.” He chuckled more.

With a deep sigh she picked up the pile of papers and began to go through them again, beginning to fill them out and get them ready for processing. Oh joy.

—————————————————————

“You know that you did me proud today don’t you?” Asked Harry while they were all enjoying a mug of hot cocoa after dinner.

Nobody said anything, they just kinda looked into their mug and smiled a little bit.

“What?” Harry had serious feeling that he was missing something, he just wasn’t sure what it was right now.

Neville, thought he would be generous and tell his brother what was going on but Cedric spoke up first, “It’s you Harry.”

“Huh, what about me?” Harry was confused now?

“You know exactly what needs to be done, how to get it done, no wasted breath, no arguments, no platitudes, no beating around the bush, no probabilities, just absolutes. We go out there facing shit. We know it is shit. But we also know as long as we do exactly what you say to do, then we will win. Because we have done our job, we have done the best we can do, we have done everything that was expected from us and we can can win. As long as we know what to do, and we know what is expected from us, we can conquer anything in our path, and you made that happen. You made this team. You designed the tiers, you arranged the groups, you set up our jobs, you arranged our training…which is going brilliant by the way…love the archery…you keep your word, you train us, you provide our supplies, you have made us a team and look at what we can accomplish. Eastern Wales Orphanage, Twin Oaks Orphanage, Pretty Boy Floyde’s Sex Shop, Diagon Alley, and today in Hogsmeade.” Cedric stated sipping some of his cocoa.

“And another thing,” He continued “I know that there were eleven orphans from Eastern Wales, Twin Oaks, and Pretty Boy that we sponsored that got to go to Hogwarts this year just because we paid for them to go. It might have been Floyde’s money but we chose to put that money to a good use and paid for those orphans to go to school. And from what I understand you didn’t just pay for one year either, you paid for their full education when you put them in school all at one time. So that no one could take it away from them later or anything. Like if the Orphanage got irritated and wanted to pull them out or something, well their schooling is already paid for so they could still go to school they would just have to find somewhere to stay for a few months out of the year. And knowing McGonagall she would put them to cleaning the castle or working the gardens or something in order to let them stay in the castle through the summer months. But that is neither here nor there. The fact is that that you made that happen. No one cared about those orphans until now. No one. Not the Ministry, not the Wizengamot, not the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, none of them you did Harry, you and Neville together brought those kids hope. You two saved those kids.”

“Whoah now, It may have been my idea…but we all did the work. I never went any where in any of those situations alone. I may be daft but I am not stupid. The only way any of those things work is because I had an excellent team behind me. I had my brother beside me, and Luna and Pavarti watching our tails, then Tier two backing us up. Tier three ready to pick up the pieces. It has never been a one man show, so don’t give me all the credit I won’t take it. I may know what needs to be done, and how to give an order, but I would never be able to do it without the right person in the right place at the right time doing the right job. The only way anything gets done is that once I give that order I know for a fact that it will be followed, I don’t have to second guess it, I don’t have to come back in ten minutes and check on you guys to make sure that things are being done. Or wonder where someone is at, or worry where you are located because I know you will be exactly where I told you to be. Until you are given different orders by someone of equal or higher ranking, which right now equals out to Amelia Bones, Headmistress McGonagall, My father, or, Neville, Luna, or Pavarti. Now I consider most of he Professors to be only slightly lower than that, but still not on the same level, I am afraid.” Harry stated.

“I didn’t know you considered me on the same level as yourself?” Luna asked shyly.

“Of course, you’re my equal in all things. Just like Pavarti is Neville’s equal. And Neville is my equal. And your Pavarti’s equal. We balance each other out perfectly.” Harry said “There are some things that I could never hope to find another person like you, nor would I ever with to try, your my perfect balance.”

“Okay before we get too mushy, back to what we were talking about.” Neville rolled his eyes. “When it comes to the team, First Tier is equal in all ways. That’s true, if Harry has an order or an idea, usually I know what is rattling around in that pea sized little brain of his. But not always. Sometimes he goes off half cocked, like when he went after Pretty Boy Floyde. That one was full steam ahead and no stopping him to think, I was just along for the ride on that one I think. Hell I think we all were. But normally I know what he is thinking and can give folks a heads up or a direction of where we are headed if necessary. I just hope it isn’t necessary too often.”

“The thing is we want you to all know that your input is always welcome, anytime you have an idea, or see something you think we have missed, or know something that might work better, let us know. I am not all knowing, all seeing, and by Merlin I don’t want to be. I am just trying to be the best Rider that I can possibly be. And be the best leader I can be, the leader I think you all deserve.” Harry stated as he played with his cup.

“And we are just telling you we hope to be the best Riders we can be, a team you can be proud of, a team that you can say is your team and you made us, that we are your team, and say it with conviction and pride, because that is what we want. We want to be your team, yours and Neville’s team. I admit I haven’t seen a lot of fights or been in a lot of battles but I know by the gods that the only people I ever want to be in a battle with are sitting in this room right now. The only people I trust and to have my back, the only people that I trust to lead me are right in this room.” Cedric stated and the rest of the room clapped, or nodded or both.

“Okay, okay enough of the sappy annoying stuff now down to business. We have a few new inventions to bring to everyones notice.” Fred smiled real big.

For some reason Harry wanted to grimace but didn’t. “What’s you got in research and development?”

“First is the Flash-Bang grenade. It looked like a rubber ducky but I guess everything has to look like something. You with off the safety and squeeze it’s stomach until you hear a click at that point it is armed, than toss it, you have five seconds and it will make a huge flash of light and a loud bang sound."

Harry immediately took ten of them and put them in his trench coat, and Neville and Cedric took five each. That leaves about a basket left for them to play with in the field.

“The next little gem is called the Whirlygig, This one is a firecracker it spins in place, lighting up an area about four foot around it with bright white light as it spins and whistles loudly, great for a distraction, and quite pretty too.” George introduced those. They were no bigger than a slice of bread but they had pretty sparkles on them any way. “You just pull this tab here and toss it when they land they will flip to their top side and start spinning and sparking away, and it doesn’t matter how you toss it they always flip to their top.”

“Now these are smoke bombs, light them with your wand and toss, the color of he bomb is the color of the smoke you will get, and it will be dense enough for about ten second that you can’t see shit through.” Fred had a couple of handfuls of them, Neville and Harry grabbed a handful each and then each gave Cedric some of what they had grabbed grinning at each other. Leaving the twins with their distract, diversion and decoy bags stocked but no extras.

“This one is call Peruvian Darkness Powder and we thing everyone should have some of this on hand.” George stated. “Throw this in the air and for about ten minutes and you can’t see your own hand in front of your face, you can’t blow it away or ventilate a room to make it go away it just lingers in the room for about ten minutes, and then it just turns into a smoke like mist and is gone. This will make it impossible for your enemy to find you, but it will also make it impossible for friendlies to find you either, so think before you use it. You will be blind as a bat while you are in there and we are not kidding, nothing cuts it, no lights, no fire, no wand, nothing, it is all useless. One handful of this stuff is all it takes to cover about a ten foot square area. And that is how we packaged it. Like we said everyone needs to take some of this stuff, just in case.” George handed out one pouch out to everyone then gave the remaining pouches to Harry and Neville.

“Our next little invention is called the portable swamp.” Fred stated.

“The what?” Harry chuckled.

“The portable swamp. And don’t laugh there are a lot of real nastiest that live in this swamp don’t you know. Bugbears, Alligators, Imps of all kinds, poisons snakes, dung bogs, panthers and a few other nasties we added in there for good measure, all you have to do is place it on the ground and cast engorgio on it and you have ten seconds to get to at least ten feet away. It will cover a thirty by thirty foot area. When fully expanded that is. you see every time you try and use any spell to get rid of the swamp it actually enlarges it. So it is made to take up a total of about ninety square feet when fully enlarged. The more you try and remove it, or drain it the worse it gets. It can be frustrating as hell. To get rid of it simply go to the north eastern corner and do a finite incantatem and the whole thing collapses back to its original tile.” Fred stated rubbing his hands back and forth, giggling madly. Apparently this was one of his favorite little toys he had invented. Just make sure no one is in it when it shrinks, we never did find that one alligator we lost in there.

“And now for one of our worst. And we apologize for their ahead of time, it was not our idea it was totally our dear little sister who came up with this.” It looked like a rather benign frog with a oversized mouth.

“What is it?” Harry asked.

“We were afraid you were going to ask.” George stated. “She dubbed it the the Tonsil Twister,”and he didn’t explain any further.

“And?”

With a sigh George continued “You put this little beauty in places where your enemy might be coming through and you know no friendlies are going to be coming through. Set it down and walk away quickly. The next crotch it sees it will go for and latch on to, hence twisting the family jewels right up till they reach your tonsils. Er go the tonsil twister.” And with that both Fred and George shielded their private parts and groaned.

“I think we can go without that one for a while boys. But the rest of what you have worked up for us is brilliant.” Harry said with a grimace. “Although if we hit another one of those sex shops like Pretty Boy Floyde’s we might take you up on them.”

“How about you Susan, you were working on getting some stuff done on your side as well?” Neville asked.

“I now have complete medical override over all Rider’s trunks, thankfully. So if anyone has a medical emergency we have a way to get to them and help them if necessary. Also with Madam Pomfrey’s help I was able to remake our Non-Magical first aid kits and stream line them a bit, and include things like a blood pressure cuff, a thermometer, a blood sugar testing kit, and standard first aid supplies. I have everyone fully stocked on all potions that each of us are allowed to maintain at all times, and Cedric has our emergency supplies of upper level supplies. To get any of those supplies you have to have both Cedric and my or his and Madam Pomfrey’s permission to take them. And don’t think for a minute that it won’t be notified that both Harry and Madam Pomfrey will find out about it in the end, because I designed a special report notification pad just for that purpose, that will have a place for the two signatures and the reason you are taking the potion, and the last time you took the potion. There is also a log book been created with all that information been created now for quick reference. Too many upper level potions within a thirty day period will see anyone including Harry removed from active duty. Now I am talking about Dreamless sleep, and Pain Potions level two or higher, primarily. There are a couple of more but they are way down on the list. And once you have been put on medical suspension you need to be cleared by Madam Pomfrey or another Medical Professional before you can take up active duty again.” Susan explained what all she and Madam Pomfrey had worked up between the two of them.

“Also when ever we are on a mission Madam Pomfrey stated that it might be to our advantage to take a nutrient potion a day. When I asked her why she stated that long rides would use up a lot of calories and that we would be using up more than our bodies could eat in one day so that we would need to supplement it with a nutrient potion in order to keep our magic strong and ready. While I am not sure what a calorie is, I do understand the concept, and agree that we would be using up more energy than our bodies could produce on what food we could possibly eat. So I say anytime we go on a tour or mission we take nutrient potions with us to use as a regular supplement.”

“Sounds like sound advice. Make it so, and make sure to keep an extra set, in case we need it for emergencies, Don’t ask me why, it is better safe than sorry.” Harry stated.

“Anything else we need to go over?” Harry asked, when no one mentioned anything he smiled and chugged the last of his now cold cocoa, “Okay then. Let’s all get some sleep. Neville and I have to head down to the DMLE in the morning to wake up our little bundles of joy and inform them they are under arrest.” Harry said with a smile.
He put his mug on the tray that was in the middle of the table and stood up stretching, and yawning, guess he was tired. When did he get to be so tired? Oh well…. “Night all.” Harry said as he clamped Neville on the shoulder as he began to rise to follow him.

“Yeah. Same.” Neville, yawned. And he left the room.

Cedric and the others watched them leave and slowly they got up and began to head off to bed. Fred and George were the last to leave.

“They still don’t get it do they?” Fred asked.

“Nope, and I don’t think they ever will.” George answered.