Chapter 21
CHAPTER 21
“Alright, alright Harry, Padfoot said you had something you wanted to show us.” Remus smiled.
“Yeah, ah… I kinda had an epiphany and I wanted you guys here, to see if I’m right.” Harry grinned.
“An epiphany, wow. Well what is this epiphany?” Sirius asked, curious now.
Neville knew, but he hadn’t seen it in happen yet, so he was just as excited as Harry, but when his father looked at him he just shook his head. This time it was all Harry’s show.
Harry pointed to the target about ten yards down the school grounds from where they were standing, he wanted to do this outside, just incase he was all wrong about it and it blew things sky high or something. “Keep your eye on the target.”
And he threw the ball and the target disappeared.
“What the HELL?” You blew it up!” Sirius shouted.
“Did you hear an explosion?” Neville asked the obvious question.
“What? Huh? Ah…Huh, No, no explosion. You figured out a way to blow something up without an explosion?” Sirius looked totally confused now.
Neville noticed his father moving back and forth a little while staring down at where the target had been, then he tossed a clear sphere down there and poof the target was back.
“What the…? How did you…? What is going on here?” Sirius glared at the two of them.
“Do you mind Neville?” Harry asked.
With a grin Neville created an sphere and tossed it at Harry and poof Harry was gone. “WHAT THE HELL?”
And before Sirius could have a heart attack Harry carried a rainbow sphere over to Sirius and opened his hand and said “Rainbow spheres, we now know what they do. Chameleon spheres. Clear ones, ‘splat’, thanks for that Nev,” as Neville hits him in the back of the head with a clear sphere, “As I was saying clear ones, clears away the rainbow sphere and brings the person or thing back to normal.” Harry stated as he was Harry all over again.
“I can’t believe this, a Chameleon Sphere, whose idea was this?” Sirius asked.
“Luna’s” Both boys stated together.
“What?” Frank asked, taken aback a little.
“Yeah, when we had that fifth year birthday party and she told us to make a rainbow sphere and a polka dot sphere, well we never had the nerve to try it until now.” Harry said.
“So what happens if you use the the polka dot sphere?” Remus looked at the boys.
They both shrugged and Neville shrugged and made a small one and tossed it a ways out to the side and it just made a black splotch on the ground. But it looked weird, it looked almost like a jigsaw puzzle with a couple of pieces missing.
Well now that they knew it wasn’t going to blow anything up, he made one that was larger so they could see it better and they could make out serious foot prints in the black marks that were presents. “You know if I didn’t know any better I would say this was hooked up to that map of yours. You know tracing people’s footprints.” Neville said as he stared at the footprints and trying to make out which way they went.
“Hang on I’ve got an idea. Okay Sirius you’re dark blue, Remus you’re tan, and Frank you’re orange. Neville you’re red, and I’m green. Then he started making the spheres with the appropriate colored polka dots to the appropriate person and tossed them on the ground and sure enough each persons foot prints were separate and showed where they had been, even if they over lapped you could still tell who had been where. “YES!”
“You know who is going to love these two things? Amelia and Moody, we should call them and let them in on this, I bet Amelia would love you to death if you could make her up a few of those Chameleon Spheres for her, I wonder if that is even possible?”
They all went into Sirius classroom which was the largest by far and fire called Amelia,
“No, no problem, in fact we think we have something you would love to see, you and Moody both if he is around.” Frank said into the floo. “Yes bring who ever you like, you will really love this believe me, it will make your day.” Then Frank leaned back from the fireplace and waited, he didn’t have to wait long and the first person came through, it was Amelia Bones, followed by Kingsley Shackelbolt, Tonks, and Alastor Moody bringing up the rear.
“Alright Frank you have my attention, what is so wonderful that it will just make my day?” Amelia looked at Frank Longbottom with a quirked eyebrow.
“I think he is referring to these, Madam Bones,” And Harry placed a rainbow colored sphere and a clear sphere in her hands.
“What do these spheres do?” She asked curious now, the boys and their spheres had always amazed her but to be able to hold one in her hand was interesting, she never imagined what it would feel like. It felt kinda like a thin rubber ball filled with liquid, interesting.
“Toss the rainbow one at me and find out.” Harry smiled.
“You’re kidding right?” Amelia didn’t know about this, that didn’t seem right somehow.
“Just trust me…” Harry nodded, and she did she tossed the little rainbow sphere at Harry and he disappeared or blended away, what ever way you want to look at it.
“What the hell?” Moody started “You invented a Disillusionment sphere! Look at this Bones!”
“The Question now becomes how to get you back to normal?” Amelia asked staring at what used to be a visible Harry Black.
“Throw the other sphere.” Harry said simply. Which she did and Pop! There was Harry back again.
“Can you make them where other people can use them? Like could I carry a couple of them on me or something?” She asked,
“Well the fact that you could hold them and use them answers that, the only thing we don’t know is how long they last. We will be happy to set you up will half a dozen of them to experiment with and see though.” And the boys began to make the spheres while Sirius got them a box to put the spheres in, and made sure it was indestructible. “This should work for you. Hopefully they last for a while, and you can let us know. If they last for a good long while we may end up setting you guys in the field up with some just for emergencies, you know. Oh and Croaker doesn’t know about them yet either, so you might want to keep quiet about them for now, at least until the testing phase is done.” Harry suggested.
Bones chuckled evilly and smiled “He’ll never find out about them from me.”
“Okay we have one more goodie for you.” Neville smiled this time.
“There’s more?” Shackelbolt’s eyebrows rose.
“YUP.” The smile grew, then Neville took a red polka dot sphere and dropped it on the ground and all of the sudden there were foot prints all over the place from where he stood all around and out to the door. He did the same with a green polka dot sphere and it did the same thing but it ended up over to where Harry was standing and out the door.
“What in the name of Hell?” Moody was trying to figure this one out but it was like it was slipping right through his finger tips, he just couldn’t quite grasp it.
“It’s our foot prints, everywhere we have been in this room that is.” Then he tossed a clear sphere, and a pink polka dot sphere, and everywhere that Tonks had been suddenly was present in footprints. “Change the color of the polka dots and the focus of the dots and you change the footprints. Clear sphere clears them away.”
“You could literally retrace a killers last steps with this, find his hide out, where he has a kidnaped victim hidden. The possibilities are endless, Well shit!” Moody was thrilled to say the least. He was grinning from ear to ear, and on the grizzled old Auror that wasn’t exactly a pleasant sight.
“Can you make up some of these for us as well?” Amelia’s eyes were just sparkling, she was so excited. The ability to use the boys spell spheres was exciting to say the least but in such a useful manner was beyond anything she could have imagined. She had a couple of cases she was working on right now that these spheres might very well help with.
“Too bad it can’t retrace steps when a person apparatus, boss.” Tonks said with a frown.
“No you can’t but once they touch back down you’ve got their footsteps again.” Harry stated, “And I haven’t seen a time restriction on it yet.”
“Unfortunately it doesn’t tell you when the person has been in the area though, which is the only bad thing I have found to it, we might see if we could tweak it a little and come up with a way to do that, but I don’t know,” Harry looked like he was thinking hard on that one. “I know that when you are looking at a jumbled mess of foot prints, the ones that are most clear and brightest are the most recent, but other than that, I don’t know.”
“Don’t worry about it, this is enough for now, if it needs to be tweaked we will see about tweaking from our end and let you know about it. And we will see what we find out about time frames too. We will be your test subjects, I have a couple of cases I am working on that these very we may help us solve and if they do then we shall see about getting you a commendation for it boys. You boys have been working for our side for a while with no recognition for too long as it is, you deserve something for all that you have done at some point.” Amelia stated, putting the container of spotted spheres into her cloak right next to the rainbow spheres. She closed her cloak and patted her pocket as if to make sure they were all in there safe and sound. And smiled over to Harry who to her surprise was frowning.
“We want no acknowledgement unless it is to the Riders in general. What we do is not to get praise or recognition, it is strictly because it is the right thing to do.
“You.are.annoying.” Amelia glared at Harry and Neville who couldn’t help but grin back,
“Yup.” They both said at the same time, and everyone laughed at that,
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“Today we are going to learn about the Severing Charm or Diffindo. It honestly has a rather interesting history behind it that I think at least one of you will find fascinating. A dressmaker by the name of Delfina Crimp invented the spell in the fifteenth century, as a means of cutting material, up until that time the only spell that could be used to cut material would just as soon burn the dress up as it would be to shorten it by an inch.”
Professor Flitwick looked over to Lavender brown who was all ears and writing everything he said down feverishly.
“Unfortunately for her Crimp’s rival found out that she was using magic to create her masterpieces and raided her shop and captured her with a bunch of his friends, nearly killing her, through ingenuity and her quick wit she managed to escape even grabbed her a bag of gold out of the little scuffle. And although nothing was ever proven, it is believed that she ransacked her rival’s warehouse and store, because within a matter of a few hours everything inside that he and his workers had worked years on was in shreds.”
“Now I want you to understand while this spell was invented to cut material, it can cut skin just as easily. So do be careful where you wave your wand when you cast Diffindo. One wrong pointed wand could end someone’s life. Always remember never point your wand at someone unless you intend to do damage.”
“Alright everyone we are going to take turns at the target I have down here at the front and I want each of you to remember what I said, cast it outside of class and the charm can cause harm… it is like carrying a knife on your person at all times so take care with using it. Two rows please.”
With that the procession began and the casting practice was started, some were hesitant, while others seemed to want to cast it to see how much damage they could actually do, and were shocked to say the least. Disgusted would be a more accurate term to use, one person even threw up after they cast, because the dummy lost an arm. Lavender Brown seemed to want to shorten the pants leg on the dummy by about an inch and would have done so if it had actually had a pair of pants on it. But she seemed to be pleased with her results.
Each person was thrilled with their results, until Terry Boot sneezed while he was doing the spell and cut the target dummy in half and caused Lisa Turpin and Mandy Brockenhurst to start screaming and Morag McDougall and Michael Corner to faint. After several minutes of attempting to try and calm the students down Flitwick finally ended the class and had Luna and Pavarti escort Miss Turpin and Miss Brockenhurst to the Medi-Ward for a calming draught. They managed to get Miss McDougall to come around but Mr. Longbottom and Mr Potter-Black had to stretcher carry Mr. Corner down to the Medi-Ward because he wouldn’t come around.
Poor Professor Flitwick was left to put his target dummy back together and hope that a simple Reparo would fix it, probably not but he would give it a try, it would be a rather poor target dummy if it would be made irreparable by getting hit by just one spell.
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After they had taken everyone to the Medi-Ward Harry and his crew decided they would just head over to the Transfigurations classroom and wait, they only had ten minutes anyway. So they all went over and sat down in the hallway and waited, soon to be joined by the rest of the Gryffindors from Flitwick’s class and they all sat down and waited as well.
At about five till the bell the door opened and a bunch of giggling girls came out of the classroom, Harry recognized them as the fifth year Hufflepuffs and each one was carrying a plushie of some form. What was Sirius up to today? Was all Harry could think about. What kind of class was this, since they were all different kinds of plushies he couldn’t think of any one spell that would work, so he was confused and Figura-Saginati-Dragonis only worked on a dragon figurine to a dragon plushie, and that was about the only one he knew that included a plushie.
“Oh that looked so fun, I wonder what spell they got to learn, and will we have to wait until fifth year to learn it?” Luna smiled.
“I don’t know the only one I know that includes a plushie is Figura-Saginati-Dragonis and it is a dragon plushie and they had all kinds and colors of plushies, everything you could imagine, I even saw a person with a purple octopus plushie. Weird, but who am I to judge.” He shrugged his shoulders.
“I saw that too, I wonder if they just like purple, or if they just like octopi, or both. Oh I hope we get a chance to do that spell today, I want a plushie now too.” She gave him those big dreamy eyes and he practically melted, one of these days he would take her to a carnival and play those side show games where you can win a teddy bear that is as big as you are, and he’d win her that damn bear no matter how much money it took for him to win it.
The door opened to the room and everyone started into the room so Harry and his crew got up and headed into the room as well, slowly but surely. They got to their seats and sat down, hoping that Professor Black would let them work on the plushie transfiguration.
“Alright everyone, we have an interesting one we are working on today, this one has a bit of a history behind it.” Professor Black started. “You see it started with a story of an orphanage not all that far from here, and a group of kids not all that different from you, with one big exception. They were orphans. And they were in a very poor orphanage indeed, in fact their orphanage was practically falling apart around them. They couldn’t afford to have Wards put up and because of a really bad storm, they needed a new roof and many of the windows had been broken, so many in fact that they had had to move all the children from one whole section into the dinning hall to sleep because of the cold and the rain, they were left un-protected. They also needed a their bathrooms remodeled but when it came between a choice of feeding the children and getting a new toilet, well you could guess which one happened.” Sirius explained as he paced back and forth in front of the class, then he came to a stop in the middle of the room.
“Then one day it happened, they appeared, out of no where. The Riders. There were ten of them and they just suddenly appeared, and asked the Matron of the orphanage what the orphanage needed and how they could help. The Riders arranged for that new roof, and to fix all those windows, they had all the plumbing and bathrooms repaired and remodeled, then they paid to have the best Wards possible put up. As a final good bye the Riders gave each and every orphan a plushie, and that is the transfiguration I am going to teach to you today. They took a bunch of pebbles from outside the orphanage; and used those pebbles to begin handing out plushies to all the children, until each and every child had something to sleep with that night. And they went through and tucked them all in and kissed them good night before they left that night. Now the last thing they did was go around and make sure that each and every plushie would remain permanent so no one would wake up with a pebble the next morning or anything.”
“Now the transfiguration is Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum, now all you need to do is focus on the type of plushie you want, focus on the color, the type, get the picture in your head. Don’t try for any over about three feet in size, it won’t work, but up to about thirty six inches is fine. They can be as small as you want them, but about twenty four to thirty inches is the average.
“Let’s see what you can do about this then, Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum, everyone with me…Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum, alright with me… one more time, Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum. All right people, now it is your turn. Have fun and think about it a little before you make your first creation. I am going to pass around a bowl of pebbles and I want everyone to take three and begin.” With that Professor Black passed around a bowl of Knut sized pebbles and everyone picked out three and passed the bowl on to the next person.
Harry already had an idea of what he wanted to make, or at least one of the things he wanted to make, he wasn’t sure about the other two. He picked out his pebbles and closed his eyes and he opened his eyes and pointed his wand at the first pebble and said “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”. Poof! The little kitten Plushie that Harry had made for that little orphan girl was sitting on his desk smiling up at him.
“Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum” Poof! The purple unicorn that Neville had made for that little girl, that had made her so incredibly happy was sitting on his desk before him. Apparently they were thinking along the same lines.
“Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, and the little fawn plushie that Luna had seen one little boy snuggled up with, was on her desk.
“Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, a Bassett hound puppy plushie that Cedric had given one little boy was now on Pavarti’s desk.
Apparently Sirius had recognized the plushies and went over to them and lifted them up and showed them off telling folks that they were just some examples of what you could make with a little imagination and a few moments to think about it.
“Just think, these Riders made all those plushies, and no two were alike, each one was unique in some way and so I am sure you can come up with some that are unique. Mr. Malfoy, excellent a dragon, beautiful. Realistic yet still a plushie. Mr Zabini a hawk, even has the hood and all, looks like it if you removed the hood it would practically take off and fly. “Miss Bullstrode I never thought of a flower as a plushie but there goes to show you what I know, a beautiful orchid plushie.” Down the row of Slytherins Professor Black went noting each accomplishment and each new plushie got points. Davis’ did a beautiful polar bear, Nott did a lifelike cobra ready to strike, Malfoy’s second creation was an albino peacock that was beyond beautiful. And he got twenty points for it.
Harry began to think about two very special plushies he made that night and decided to copy them, “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum” he said and poof! There was an adorable fluffy teddy bear with a black nose, and Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum and poof! There was the same exact bear with a pink nose. James’ and Matthew’s bears that he had made them that night. He held the bears tight and thought of his brothers, he guess with all this Rider stuff he had been ignoring the little munchkins some, he would have to see what he could do about that. He had spent several days teaching them how to ride a broom, both him and his dad had and they took to a broom like fish to water. Matthew was a little more reserved about it than James, no surprise there. Of the two James was definitely the bolder more courageous. Matthew was more the thinker, the planner, more like Remus. He liked to know everything before he did anything and then and only then would he try anything. But they both loved flying, even if it was only three feet off the ground right now, (due to the safety features of the brooms themselves), and when they get a little older they would be able to see if they could go up to five feet but not anytime soon. A broken arm or leg was not fun, Harry knew from experience, better to wait a year or so until your big enough to handle it than to try too early.
Neville got a very thoughtful look on his face and then made a face and closed his eyes when he opened his eyes he had a smile on his face and he said “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, and before him was an adorable patchwork clown with bright orange hair. His clown had a purple jumpsuit with patches on it’s knees and elbows and big floppily purple shoes and a purple pointy hat on it’s head with a bright orange pompom on the end of it. It was adorable.
Then he closed his eyes again and “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, and another clown was sitting right next to the first one but this one was blue with green hair, it had patches on it just like the other one had and the big floppily blue shoes and a blue pointy had with green hair and each one had huge smiles with great big blue eyes that sparkled and followed you where ever you went. They even has a little hearts where their cheeks were that were bright pink and just made their smiles seem even bigger. They were twins! So cute!
Pavarti giggled at the adorable clowns and bears then closed her eyes and “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, and adorable stuffed bunny like the one she had seen a little girl at the orphanage have was sitting there. It’s big pink ears flopped over it's face and onto the desk so adorably. And it's big buck teeth just added to the picture.
Then she closed her eyes again and said “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, this time it was a Black and white splotchy bunny sitting beside it, this one had huge coal black eyes and a black bow tie around it’s neck.
The final pebble she had picked up was tan so she aimed her wand at it and “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, in it’s place was an adorable tan bunny with big brown splotches on it, it had big blue eyes and a pretty pink bow around her neck.
Luna smiled as she watched all the plushies they had made and smiled as she remembered some of the children at the orphanage, and then closed her eyes and said “Calculus-Villosum-Ludibrum”, her plushie was a fluffy lamb just like the one that little girl with the blond ringlets all around her face. Then she made another, this one was like the one that belonged to the little boy that had all the freckles it was a panda bear with a big red bow tie. Her final one was for the older girl that had the pretty red pigtails and green eyes, she was one of the sponsored kids that got to come to Hogwarts and it was a lion with a big fluffy golden mane. Oddly enough the girl was put in Hufflepuff. But she still had the courage of the lion to be an orphan and help take care of the younger ones like she was. Luna looked at her creations and smiled, remembering each of the children associated with them and shared a knowing smile with the other Riders as they all looked at their creations.
Sirius remembered seeing some of the stuffed toys amongst the ones the children at the orphanage had and couldn’t help but smile. “Ok folks again, the Riders did one last thing before they left that night. They went around and made each one of those transfigurations permanent for those orphans. So that they would never have to be without a plushie of their very own, so to each and every child in the orphanage they went and made each plushie permanent. It wouldn’t be much of a present if it turned back into a pebble while the child was sleeping in a few weeks after all. So pick out one plushie you want to keep for your very own and I will perform the same spell on it and you make keep it permanently.
Harry picked the kitten, as much as he loved the twins the kitten held a special meaning for him.
Neville picked the purple unicorn it meant so much to that little girl, it made her so happy.
Pavarti chose the picked the first bunny she had made, the one the little girl had had that she had enjoyed so much.
Luna didn’t want to pick one because each one held a special memory for her, but she finally decided to pick the little lion since the little girl was going to school here, she had come the farthest and was in the need of the most encouragement of the three right now.
Everyone let the other plushies be put aside into a pile and it was time to head to lunch.
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Everyone piled into the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom and quietly took their seats as they shuffled to them with their plushies in arms, or most people had their plushies, all the Riders put their plushies in their bags, so things weren’t as crowded or hard to work with at a desk.
“I heard about Professor Black’s Transfiguration class, you all made some adorable plushies, or at least most of you. Looking pointedly over to the four in the front. Not to be out of place the Riders took out their plushies and put them on their desks, apparently Professor Longbottom recognized at least some of the plushies from the orphanage, specifically that purple unicorn and that kitten. The first two created. With a half sad smile he nodded and allowed them to put them away again. “Very good, very good work indeed, to all of you.”
“Today we are going to work on the Stunning spell or Stupefy. You will know a Stupefy by it’s red wand light that is emitted. Best way to block it is not to get hit by that light. The counter charm to it is the Reviving spell which we will also be learning, which is Rennervate. It can also be blocked by a good shield charm or Protego.” The Professor began.
“This spell will render your target unconscious for the duration, now for most people that is a few hours, maybe a day or so, but with an especially strong stunner the timeframe can vary. Now this is the common spell that most Aurors were allowed to use during the last war when the enemy was throwing all kinds of nasty spells at you, you had one spell in your arsenal, the stunner spell. That was as strong as we were allowed to use. That was until Minister Millicent Bagnold was elected into office in nineteen eighty and she changed everything. She was a firm believer in fight fire with fire. If they were throwing big and nasty at you, you could throw the same back at them. No more fighting AKs with Stunners any more.”
“Does anyone think that they can produce a stunner in here?” Professor Longbottom asked and got several hands up,”Ok let’s start with those that feel that they can do it, Mr. Malfoy you first.”
“I want everyone to form two rows and to aim at the target dummy down at the end of then room. Each time you preform the spell correctly it will light up green, now let’s see what you can do.
Malfoy did two out of three correctly, not bad at at. Not bad at all.
Zabini did the all three correctly, really good.
Nott did two out of three correctly, also really good.
Greengrass did three out of three. Excellent.
Neville three out of three, Excellent.
Luna three out of three, Excellent.
Pavarti three out of three, Excellent.
Black three out of three, Excellent.
Thomas two out of three, really good there.
“All right there people excellent now for the rest of you let’s see if you can do this. And let’s see why not if you aren’t catching the hit.
Davis two out of three, great work.
Brown two out of three, very good.
Bullstrode one out of three, ok you are missing the target, aim to your left, there you go, two and three. Excellent.
Finnigan one out of three, someone put that fire out please, Mr. Finnigan you are trying to knock the opponent out not burn them to a crisp. Your putting too much magic into your spell. Tone it down by about half. Try it on the other target dummy. Two and three, very good. You need to watch the strength of your spells, you want to get the effects you are looking for not blow things up or catch them on fire.” Professor shook his head and looked at his pathetic smoldering target dummy, he wasn’t sure he could fix this one but he would try. Frank realized that going through puberty sucked and that fluctuating energy levels was just the facts of life at that age but geez.
The bell rang and Professor Longbottom said “We are going to be working on Petrificus Totalus next class so look it up and study it, I want a twenty inch paper on it ready for me next class.” Then he dismissed the class. Well most of them.
“I know it means missing Arithmancy, but Amelia Bones flooed and she needs you two to come down and release the ones that you did down in Hogsmead. It’s going to take a while so she wanted to start it a little earlier but I wanted to wait until class was over with. Do you mind missing Arithmancy?” Professor Lovegood asked the boys. Neither wanted to miss, but they knew their duty and they agreed.
“I hate it that only the two of us are going down, it is like only the two of us did anything, when that isn’t true.” Neville said.
“That’s right, we would rather go down with all of us, if possible.”
“Yeah, have the Riders all come in, dressed in battle formation gear, battle formation like always. That is who we are, not the two of us. We won’t go unless it is all of us.” Harry said finally.
Frank nodded. “I’ll see about getting the others; Harry, Neville, Luna, and Pavarti, you four stay here while I check on this.
Twenty minutes later they were all in the room, they took out their trunks and went in and changed into their battle gear, then came back up and were ready to go. “All right Professor. Now we are ready.”
Frank nodded, he understood to a degree, dressed like that why looked like a force to be reckoned with, not some kids fresh out of school. They looked like the Riders that they were. So he led them over to the floo in his office and led them through, he went first followed by Harry, and first Tier, then second Tier, and finally third Tier with Hermione bringing up the rear.
Frank then took them over to Amelia’s office where they were met by Amelia, Shackelbolt, Moody, Tonks and Dawlish.
“What’s this, we only needed Longbottom and Black?” Dawlish opened his mouth and inserted foot.
“We are the Riders, Sir, We fought together there and while you need just the two of us right this minute we will always stand together.” Harry stated simply.
“Thank you all for coming, and I must say, you look impressive. I wouldn’t want to have to face your team anywhere, we are lucky to have your assist that day, hell any day.” Amelia stated.
“You are quite welcome. The Riders live to serve,” Neville stated.
“Let’s get this started then shall we,” And with that she led the Riders and her people out of her office and down a long hallway that was adjoining her office, then it branched out and she took the right branch, down to the rooms that they had the prisoners held in. Each one was in a separate interrogation room, the room was blatantly bare except for a large table and a few chairs, one on one side of the table where the perp was secured to the table and two at the table and two further back.
Most of the perps were hired Mercenaries, from all over, France, Italy, Spain, Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Germany, it didn’t seem to matter where he got his people from right now he was desperate for someone to fill the shoes and get the job done. Who ever the he was. And that was something they hoped to figure out while they were doing interviews today.
Bjorn Franks, mercy from France. Real high on their top ten most wanted list too.” Amelia said pointedly.
“Bad man up!” Harry and Neville said together and Franks was immediately awake, looking around trying to figure out where he was and how he got there. It didn’t take long for him to figure out he was in the interrogation room of the Auror’s Department, since he was chained to the desk and all. The how he got there was a complete mystery to him though. One minute he was picking off kids outside of the candy shop in that little village, the next minute he wakes up here. It made no sense to him. Something was missing.
Then he looked across the room and saw all the young faces and was even more confused. Who were these kids? Why were they here? And what did they have to do with all this? What was going on here?
Seeing the man’s confusion, Harry thought he would clear things up a little, “We are the Riders, you are here because we captured you and your companions during your raid on Hogsmead. We are here to make sure you don’t get away with it.” Harry stated simply.
Franks stared at Harry with his mouth agape, he couldn’t believe his eyes. He had heard about the Riders, almost everyone in his field had by now. But no one said they were just a bunch of kids, or were they under polyjuice potions to look like kids, that was probably it. No one without years of experience could capture him and his partners, so these couldn’t be real kids, they had to be polyjuiced adults made to look like kids, but why? Probably to try and make sure that their true identity remained a secret. They wanted the individuals to look as far different from the real people as possible so instead of ten muscle bound, war wise, street hardened, scar covered fighters, you have ten sweet, innocent, thirteen to maybe sixteen or seventeen year olds. They looked athletic, but defiantly not muscle bound, no scars or wounds anywhere that he could see and they all appeared to be unscathed, not what you would expect from the Riders in general.
This was all rumbling around in Franks’ head as he sat there staring at the Riders.
Amelia looked at the perp and didn’t exactly like the way he was starting at the kids so she decided to move things along a little, “We are going to be asking you a series of questions and you will answer them truthfully and fully to the best of your ability, is that understood?”
“Go to Hell.” Was all he stated. And he turned from glaring at the Riders to glaring at Amelia, who looked over to the Riders and nodded. With that Franks felt a tingling around his throat and one of the male Riders stated “Tell the truth”. The next thing you know he felt almost compelled to do so.
“Now as I was say, do you understand?”
“Yes,”
“Good. First question, what is your name?” Amelia started.
“Bjorn Sebastian Franks.”
“Are you a hired mercenary?”
“Yes” He fought the completion to tell the truth but to no avail.
“Were you hired to attack Hogsmeade yesterday?” Amelia asked.
“Yes.
“Who hired you?”
He paused, fighting for all he was worth, “The Dark Lord,”
“By Dark Lord do you me Lord Voldemort?” This time it was Moody who asked.
“Yes” he said through clenched teeth,
“Did you actually see him, or were you just told that is who you were working for,” AAHHhhh….. he bit his tongue in half and blood began to pour out of his mouth and down his chin, Susan stepped forward and did a quick healing spell on him to stop the bleeding but apparently he had swallowed the other portion of his tongue so it was a trip to St. Mongos for this one. It looked like.
“Apparently there is some form of protection on that information, but we shall see, if we use the drops first to make them docile then the truth ring to make them tell the truth no matter what, perhaps we can work the two together and get better results.” Amelia looked at the drooling Franks in disgust and ushered the Riders out the door to the next interrogation room.
In the next room a gruff looking young man was chained to the table, he had only one ear and a ragged slice across his right cheek made him look rather ferocious, a few seconds in the room and the young man was coming around, growling as he did so. What was this thing about growling? Harry wondered.
While he was still asleep they had slipped three drops of Veritaserum onto his tongue and when he woke up Amelia stated, “ You will answer our questions honestly and completely is that understood?”
“Yes.”
“Good, Now what is your name?”Amelia started out light,
“Szymon Stanislaw.”
“Are you a hired Mercenary?”Amelia asked
Groan, “Yes.”
“We know the Dark Lord hired you, did you ever see him in person, simply nod if you did.” Amelia tried.
Stanislaw quaked and quivered and then finally nodded, then he began to have a seizure and again Susan and this time Padma joined in to lend aid. They called for a medic and got him back under control apparently that was it for that one for today.
Next one was a tall dark haired, olive complected man in his mid thirties if Harry had to guess. Clean shaven and well, hansom for a mercenary that is. A few moments in the room, three drops of Veritaserum and one truth ring later…
“What is your name?” Amelia began.
“Alessio Giordano.”
“Are you a hired Mercenary?” Amelia asked.
“Yes,”
“This one I want you merely to lie to me about, you have never seen the Dark Lord, nor have you ever been given orders to attack Hogsmead by the Dark Lord directly.”
“That's right,”
Amelia smirked at that, they had their answer to that then,
“Very well, do you know of any other large scale attacks that are going to take place soon?” Amelia asked,
“St, Mongos,”
“When...when are they planning on attacking St. Mongo’s?” Moody came out with it.
“Don’t know, plans weren’t done yet. I would do it around Christmas or New Year’s if it was me. Destroy the Public’s hopes and dreams and all that. Make them fear more, dread more.”
“Any others?” Moody asked curious now.
“They are wanting to break into the prison, release those that were captured there.” He said
“Do you have any idea when that one is planned?” He growled gruffly.
“After St. Mongos is all I heard. But before school lets out for the summer.” He looked confused, like he couldn’t understand why he was saying all the things he was saying. But he just kept on answering what they asked.
“How many people do they have right now?” Amelia asked.
“About sixty, including us.
“So that leaves about thirty left to do St. Mongos, it would be close but doable, but there is no way they could do that and Azkaban with just thirty. St. Mongos they would loose at least twenty percent, more if they send in a bunch of newbies like last time. Their looking at being down by about half and hitting Azkaban with fifteen is impossible. Maybe thirty to fifty mercs might do it but not fifteen. They have thirty guards that watch Azkaban that are on and off duty Aurors, that live on site available to call in for emergencies, plus the dementors.
“This is probably the reason they are still in the planning stage with that one, they need more people. And probably why he is wanting to hit Azkaban to begin with anyway, we have taken to many of his people out of the picture."
“Would it be possible to put all his people to sleep? You know make it so that only one of us could wake them up even if they did get rescued that they would be worthless, since they couldn’t wake them up?” Harry thought out loud.
“That actually isn’t a bad idea, put them all to sleep in their cell after St. Mongos. And don’t wake them up. They would be no better than mannequins to the Dark Lord though, so they would be good as dead… are you ready to condemn that many people to death?” Amelia asked.
Luna cleared her throat, then stated. “If they are asleep, by us, would they even have to be at Azkaban? I mean putting them someplace like the dungeons of Hogwarts would work as well. Then not only would they not be waking up, but he wouldn’t be getting a hold of them at all and they would have no chance of recapture at all. No chance of being put to death because he couldn’t wake them up. Or maybe the holding cells here at the Ministry, anywhere that is secure and well warded would work.”
“I love this kids mind. She’s right, they don’t have to even be there. Hell we could put them in the old cafeteria for all they would care, put bunks down there and put temporary bars around each bunk, It could work Amelia, it could work. Take any of his heavy hitters, like Malfoy and the Lestranges out of Azkaban and bring them here, any of the the real threats that he is just dying to get back and hide them away here in the old dining hall along with all the new captures and give him one big disappointment from his little break out attempt.” Moody stated, looking over to Amelia who was nodding right along with him, she liked the idea.
“I say we do it, no later than New Years, we will have to have nutrient potions on hand to magic into their stomachs on a daily basic and some water available to do the same but other than that they should be fine, magic in some water, empty their bladder and bowels with a spell. And then move to the next one. Maybe two hours a day maintenance for the lot of them, a couple of quick spells to learn and we have got it covered. I like the idea. Now we just have to find the right people to trust with the maintenance part. Anyone we let know of their location outside of this room is a security risk.” Amelia stated, trying to think of the right person.
“I would do it, Padma and I need the practice for that sort of thing. We can floo over after dinner and make our rounds then floo back to the school.” Susan volunteered.
“That’s a lot to take on Susan, maybe sixty people you have to care for on a daily basis, everyday? Are you sure?” Amelia voiced her doubts but at the same time was impressed with her niece wanting to take on such a huge responsibility.
“I think we can do it, it is only thirty people each if we split them up, and a scourgify once a week wouldn’t hurt them either. We can always ask Madam Pomfrey how long we can have them on the nutrient potions before there is adverse effects other than stiff or weak muscles but to be quite honest, what is the difference between that and a eight by ten cell in Azkaban. They can’t really exercise there except the basics and even then it is limited, to three or four that I know of, or more if they know Martial Arts. But really they are extremely limited to exercise in their cells. So they normally just sit or sleep most of the time anyway. Now we are just taking the choice away from them. The nutrient potions we would be giving them would be better for them that that gruel they get at the prison, and a scourgify once a week is better than a shower once a month as well. So in reality they would be treated better than they would at Azkaban, they would just be asleep and wouldn’t know it.” Susan stated.
Padma nodded, “I think we can do it. It would be a challenge, but that is what the medical field is anyway. It would only be for a few months anyway. Besides it would help our side and it is the right thing to do.”
“And you will need someone to come in and help rotate them, so they don’t get bed sores, Tier two can do that and take care of the scourgify once a week.” Cedric volunteered. Fred and George nodded.
“If Tier three can take care of the bladder and bowel, then Tier one can take care of the water and nutrient potions. We can have all these people knocked out and back home in an hour tops.” Harry stated. “Also if any Tier wants to switch up or any person wants to switch up, they can, this is volunteer only basis folks. Mainly for the experience, not a command or necessity. Only to help out.”
Hermione cleared her throat, “Would it be be too much of a bother could I work with Tier two on this, I really don’t want to clear out some strangers bowels, or bladder, and I am not that good with nursing to be able to magic nutrient potions or water into someone’s stomach.”
“That’s fine, what ever you are most comfortable with, like I said, this is only to help out. Not a command.” Harry smiled to her. And she smiled back, the idea of emptying someone’s bladder was a little more nauseating than she was willing to work with right now. She’d do it if she had too, but unless she had to, no thanks.
Amelia was surprised that all the kids were willing to work with the idea and get this done, with all of them doing it then it wouldn’t take anytime at all and no one would be over burdened. This is the kind of team work she wished her people had.
“Ok we now have a fairly good picture of what all is coming in the next few months, and what to expect, so let’s go wake up the rest of these perps and see what else they have to say.” Amelia stated and led the way out of the interrogation room and into the hallway.
The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent waking up prisoners, and asking extenuating questions, trying to fill in the blanks to see if any of the bad guys knew any more than any of the others, and quite honestly they didn’t. None seemed to be really up on the most current plans or information, just general plans and ideas right now. And even then some were just following orders from someone else who was higher up than them, some who they had managed to get and some who they had not. In other words most of these people were small potatoes as it were. Hired wands and new recruits, no one of note or authority at all. In fact it seemed like that one, Alessio Giordano, knew more about what was going on that most of them did. And that wasn’t saying much. He probably just knew more because he was very observant and constantly watching and listening to everything that was going on around him.
They all headed home that night satisfied that they had done the best that they could, and had gotten the most information from the perps as possible. The one thing about helping the Aurors like this was was a huge benefit was that you got the information at the same time they did. So Harry and the Riders knew that Voldemort was very much alive. That he was living in a mansion in England somewhere. That were planning an attack on St. Mongos between now and the end of the Semester. And they were planning an attack on Azkaban between now and the end of the Semester. That he currently had about thirty free individuals with him, although he could probably get several more mercenaries if necessary. When they told Frank, Alice, Sirius, and Remus about all this they were amazed at how much information they were able to get out of the people. The whole Voldemort was alive part was the biggest threat. That is when they included, Xenophilius and Persephone, the Headmistress and Professor Flitwick in on everything.
“He’s back, he’s really back.” Minerva whispered. “I thought they were making it so he would never be able to come back again.”
“We knew he had the single spirit that he had within his original body, and that if he could get someone to perform the ceremony then he would be back, we though he would use Harry’s blood to do so, but apparently he used someone else’s blood. But we changed the bone of the father to be bones of a pig farmer of a total random individual in northern Scotland, and they were completely without magic or any magical association, so there are two things that will weaken him, the third is flesh of a servant, if the servant wasn’t loyal or as loyal as he or she appeared then that is another thing. But we have him on two of three known weaknesses. So as an individual he is about sixty percent weaker than he was before his death. That is going to become evident fairly quickly, to his followers and his enemies. So he will want to do something about it. What he is going to want to do is the question.”
“We need to talk to Croaker again too, find out what he has heard, and fill him in on this little bit if he hasn’t heard it yet. We need to know if Voldemort is mortal or if we need to find one more of those damn things and then he will be mortal. To say the least one is a hell lot less that seven and we have already concurred that many so I think we can find and destroy one more.
With that they all just sat around listening to the sound of their own hearts beating for a while, trying to figure out what to say, but no one said a word. Maybe it was better that way. Something really shouldn’t be said until they are though about for a while after all.
———————————————————
Harry had all the Riders meet him at the Room of Requirement, after dinner the next night, but when he walked in front of the room he asked for a very different room indeed, he asked for the room of lost thing. He thought it was about time to introduce his whole crew to his cave of wonders.
When they went in most of the Riders didn’t know what to think about the messy, over crowded room until Harry started to explain what the place was.
“This is the room of lost things. And everything in this room, belongs to the Riders at this point. So anything you find that you want you can claim. The books will be going back to Rider Hall, so don’t pounce on them, make a copy and put it in your trunk and put the original over to the side to go to Rider Hall.
“One thing I want everyone looking for tonight though is, is a secondary wand…there are dozens of them here, so look all over you’ll find them stuck in the weirdest places. Another thing is a good knife, we found some great knives and even a few swords in here. If you find something and you don’t know if you can have it or not ask myself or Neville we’ll be looking through some of the trunks to see what all we have missed. Cause there is a ton of stuff in here and it will take us forever to go through it all, but just have some fun and see what you can find.” Harry waved everyone off to go looking and Luna and Pavarti started going through trunks full of books again, wouldn’t you know it.
It didn’t take long at all and two redheaded torpedos came running at Harry trying to drag him to the furtherest corner of the room, “Come on, come on, you won’t believe what we found. Hell we don’t believe what we found. Some one slap us, I think am having a manic moment, He he he ’smack’ thanks I needed that, come on!” Okay that was just weird even for them, they just started giggling and then slapped each other, and thanked each other about it. They are getting too weird to think right, right now. What are they up to?
The twins led Harry over to a far corner and several open trunks and they were practically bouncing in the middle of the isles. “What did you two find in the trunks?” Harry was almost afraid to ask but he did anyway.
“Prank stuff, not just any prank stuff, but antique stuff. Stuff that Zonko’s would sell their right arm to have. This is stuff that they would give us stock in their company to have. They would offer us just about anything to be able to buy this from us. Can we keep it Harry? Can we?” Fred asked in a rush of word so fast that it was hard to understand but Harry got the gist of what he was saying.
“If you found it, it’s yours. Go for it, shrink it down and put it in your bags and do what you want to with it. If it makes you enough money to fund your shop, mores the better.” Harry grinned.
They both tackle hugged him and knocked him to the ground, apparently they liked what he had to say about that.
“HOLY SHIT!” Cedric shouted.
“Ah… could you guys let me get up, I think I need to see what that was about.” Harry mumbled from underneath the pile of redheads and they immediately let him up and helped him to his feet. He headed over to the direction he had heard the exclamation from Cedric from and sure enough there was Cedric looking at a sword and sheath and matching dagger set that his eyes were just sparkling.
“Harry did you see this? It’s a matching set of two daggers and a sword and bow set. It even has the quiver to match the sheaths of the sword and daggers. You guys couldn’t have seen this.” Cedric said looking a little sad after he had looked so excited.
“Of course we saw it, neither one of us use a bow, so we didn’t need it. Take it, it’s yours. But if you tackle me I will take that back.” Harry said stressing the last part.
“Really, you mean it… oh ok, no tackle, twins huh, don’t worry, no tackle. Oh, wow. This is beautiful.” With that he put the pieces in his bag and went back to looking for a wand.
Susan found a wand for herself and it was a beauty out of rosewood too, just gorgeous, they weren’t sure what the core was yet but she would have to take it to a wand master to find that out. But boy was it a strong wand. Oh and she found a nice set of daggers and a short sword for herself. She also found a complete first aid/medical encyclopedia, all twenty-two volumes in one trunk, she was dancing in circles.
Padma went over to one trunk and found a beautiful white winters cloak that would just match the wedding dress that they had found for her earlier. She shrieked when she realized it was real mink too.
Pavarti and Luna had about eight trunks of books set aside to move over to Riders Hall but they were running out of space, Harry just smiled at them and shook his head, “Jeeves” and of course the house elf appeared, “Could you take these trunks over to the library at Rider Hall for us, but don’t put the books away, I’ll want to go through them myself later before they get put up. Just put them somewhere that they won’t be an inconvenience for now, Thank you.”
“Of course Sir,” With a snap Jeeves and the eight trunks were gone, leaving a nice size empty space for Pavarti and Luna to fill. Which is exactly what the girls set out to do. As they floated the next trunk over to their area.
Hermione found all the old copies of Hogwarts a History and just about fainted, first she suggested giving the older copies to the kids that we were sponsoring to come to Hogwarts the older copies, but Harry stated it would be better to get them their own brand new copy for Christmas, and sort of start a tradition if you will, first Christmas at Hogwarts you get your very own copy of Hogwarts a History. She loved that idea. She also loved the fact that she had gotten the oldest copy of the book that we had available to us.
Harry couldn’t help but wonder what else to get the orphan kids for Christmas, they already had their plushie, maybe some candy from Honeydukes?
Before the three hours they had to spend in the room was up, everyone had found a blade and a secondary wand. Some worked real good, some even better than their original wand, they found some wand holsters that would work too. Although Harry still planned to get everyone new wand holsters that matched their battle outfits. You couldn’t exactly outdo those all black basilisk hide outfits though.
They left the room with plans to return another day, everyone chattering about something one thing they had seen or another, and everyone wanting to spend more time in there. All the girls had found pieces of jewelry they liked and Cedric had found a few broaches for his mother too. The twins were too occupied with their trunks to do much other than look for their wands, which they did indeed find but it took for ever since they were so preoccupied. They went around gathering up all the wands they found into one trunk and as they tried them out they would put them into the trunk there was at least forty wands in the trunk by the time they finished. Which is where Cedric found his wand and Padma found her wand too.
All in all it was a pretty good haul from the room again. And Harry only got flattened the once, thankfully.
————————————————
“I don’t care what they said, He can’t be back. You-Know-Who is dead. If you can’t accept that then that is your problem. Don’t make it your job as well!” Fudge practically shouted when Amelia informed him of the interviews.
“Minister if you ignore almost thirty interviews with the same results then you are under some serious denial or you are a fool. I have the documents from each interview proving that they admitted to seeing the Dark Lord as they referred to him, one man even bit off his own tongue before he would give us any information about him, another started having seizures. But we managed to word things just right that they were able to answer questions and give us the information we needed. But to deny that much proof is ignorant, and you are not an ignorant man.” Amelia stated
“That is right, and that is why I am saying that it must be some form of mass hysteria or confundus or something. Because You-Know-Who can not be back from the dead. Period.” Fudge stated turning slightly red.
“Actually he can.” Croaker who had been silent up until now, stated. “There are a couple of old rituals that his followers could have used to bring him back. We found several Horcruxes belonging to Lord Voldemort in the past year, but that left the primary piece unaccounted for. And using that piece they could have created a new body for him and brought him back, which apparently they did.”
“NO! No that isn’t true I tell you! Your making these things up as you go.
“Unfortunately Cornelius, those are the facts, not unsubstantiated rumors or guesses, but facts. You can close your eyes, stick for fingers in your ears and hum a few bars of your favorite tune if you wish, it isn’t going to change the facts.” Croaker stated sarcastically.
“Now see here…”
“No you see, denying that Voldemort is back will only prolong the process it will take to bring our people up to war standard, and be able to fight this. We know for a fact that he has already attacked Diagon Alley. We know for a fact that he has already attacked Hogsmead. We know for a fact that over twenty five people have told us they have seen him and received orders directly from him. We know for a fact that over twenty five people told us he is planning to attack St. Mongos. We know for a fact that over twenty five people told us he is planning on attacking Azkaban prison. Both before Hogwarts lets out for the summer. We know for a fact that over twenty five people say he has about thirty other individuals at his disposal at this time. Those are the facts Cornelius. Take them or leave them, but they are the facts. Bury you head in the sand like an idiot if you wish but you will not ignore this threat and get a bunch of innocent people killed. You will raise this office to war ready, and you will do it today. Tell your public that it is a drill if you must, but do it none the least. Let your Aurors step up recruiting, get better gear and better training. Allow my office to get better funding. If you do this, they will see a Minister that is not afraid of his own shadow, and is out to help his people safe. That should be your primary goal, not making sure your popularity vote stays high. For Merlin’s sake Cornelius we are talking about people’s lives here, pull your head out of your ass long enough to think, and realize that doing this is the only intelligent decision you can make.” Croaker glared at the Minister, waiting for a response.
A minute ticked by, then two. “Very well, you have your war standard, but if this backfires, which I am sure that it will, it will be on the two of your heads. So be for warned.
“So noted.” Amelia stated.