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Harry Potter and the Serpent's Coven | ||||||
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Category: Post-HBP Characters:All Genres: Action/Adventure, Fluff, General, Romance Warnings: Death, Sexual Situations, Violence Rating: R Reviews: 90 Summary: *** The author has been reminded via the e-mail address on file that this story is listed as incomplete and has not been updated in over 2 years *** Harry Potter realises that returning to Hogwarts for his final year is the only way he will succeed in his quest to destroy Lord Voldemort. It is a year of darkness, horror and new discoveries. Ginny Weasley is not only the witch who possesses Harry's heart, but also the true source of his strength as a wizard. Together, they will find new powers within themselves and each other, and find that there are some things that even the darkest magic cannot break. Hitcount: Story Total: 170743; Chapter Total: 4468 |
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Ron groaned as the feast ended. It would now be his and Hermione’s job to chaperone the new Gryffindors for the evening. “Oh well, should be easier this year with only four of them,” he muttered to Hermione, “But you’re taking the twins. I don’t think I can remember the names, never mind which is which.” Hermione smiled and shook her head as they got to their feet and addressed the four new pupils. “Alright you lot, we’ll take you along to your common room,” barked Ron, and hastily added, “Oh, and watch out for the stairs.” His own words then made him feel quietly distraught, for it seemed only yesterday that Percy, himself a former Gryffindor prefect, had been giving him the very same advice. Hermione squeezed his hand and beckoned to Dale, Douglas and the Larkin twins to follow them. As the hall was gradually emptied, Harry and Ginny made their way up to the staff table. “Ah, Potter, just to let you know about what will be happening to you,” began the Headmistress, “As you will have guessed, you will be on a restricted curriculum. You will continue to study Transfiguration, though as with all your subjects, this will be based around both N.E.W.T and post-N.E.W.T competency. Your other timetabled subjects will be Advanced Magical Defense, Charms, and Occlumency. Others may be added, should it prove necessary.” “Who’s taking the classes?” he enquired. “I will continue to teach Transfiguration, as Professor Flitwick will be teaching you Charms. You will be meeting your other teachers tomorrow morning, so report to my office at ten o’clock sharp; same password as before.” He nodded, and she turned to Ginny. “And now, I would like to have a private talk with you, Miss Weasley. That will be all for this evening, Potter. Get some rest.” Ginny had her head bowed as she followed Professor McGonagall. Harry stood and watched dejectedly as she left, before heading to the Gryffindor common room. “Pandemonium,” said Harry as he approached the portrait hole, and it swung open. The Fat Lady in the portrait was still wearing black from head to toe, with a black veil over her face, as a sign of mourning for Dumbledore. There was a roaring fire warming the room as he stepped inside. The two Larkin twins were sitting on the far side of the room, flicking through a book on basic Transfiguration, Hermione seemed to be giving Douglas an early Herbology lesson, and Ron, who had obviously abandoned his duties as a prefect, was munching into some chocolate frogs at the bottom of the dormitory stairs. Various students from the years in between were idly wandering here and there, some demonstrating some hilarious novelties that Harry recognised as Fred and George’s craftsmanship, but the common room wasn’t nearly as crowded as it would usually have been at this time. Dale Tulstan, the more nervous and lonesome of the first years, was sitting quietly in an armchair, staring into the fire, almost hypnotised by the dancing flames. Harry calmly walked over and sat down in the chair on the other side. “It’s err…Dale, isn’t it?” The boy slowly turned his head towards Harry, and gave a hesitant nod, as if movements too large or sudden would bring down a curse on him. “So, what do you think of Hogwarts?” he asked. Without a change in his features, Dale shrugged and spoke in a timid and slightly husky voice. “Dad said it’s a good place.” Well, the boy had a voice at least. “He’s right,” grinned Harry, “What did your parents think of you coming here now?” Dale cleared his throat and went back to staring at the fire, trying to find the right words. “Dad said I’d be safer here than at home. He said Professor Dumbledore would protect everyone.” Harry found it hard to get his head around this. Had Dale’s dad not heard that Dumbledore had died? This was perplexing. “Have you heard about what happened to Professor Dumbledore?” Dale nodded glumly. “I heard about it on the train. My dad never knew though.” Harry stayed quiet, and Dale began to speak as if he were lost in a daydream. “The last thing he told me was to lock myself in the cupboard and stay there until he came to get me. I waited for so long. I could hear him walking about downstairs, and then he stopped. It was all quiet, and then this loud bang. I heard more footsteps and some breaking noises, and then it was quiet again. I stayed in the cupboard, just like he told me, but he never came to get me.” Harry was listening to him intently, his eyes widening in horror as the boy went on. “It was the Headmistress that opened the door, and told me that my dad was dead. He was all I had left…” “W..what happened to your mother?” breathed Harry at last. “She died when my sister was born.” “Oh, you have a sister?” Harry asked, desperately searching for the silver lining in the cloud. Dale shook his head miserably. “She died ten minutes later.” This was about all that Harry could take. True, he had lost both of his parents, but being only one year old at the time, he had no clear memory of it. Dale, on the other hand, seemed to have endured this suffering fairly recently. One thing was for sure; he would do anything he could to help him, for as long as he remained at Hogwarts. “You’re Harry Potter, aren’t you?” said Dale. “Yes, unfortunately,” he nodded. To Harry’s utter amazement, a smile crept over Dales face. “Dad told me about you and the things they said about you in the newspaper,” he beamed, “He said he’d love to meet you one day.” Dale yawned and stretched. The poor boy was obviously exhausted. “If you want to have a lie down, the dormitory’s just up there,” pointed Harry, “There should already be a bed made up for you.” The boy nodded his thanks, then shuffled across the room and up the stairs. Harry was still staring after him as Ron came over. “Bit of an oddball, that one,” murmured Ron, as he followed Harry’s eye line, “Never said a word, even when Peeves was hurling owl droppings at him.” Harry pondered over this and grinned. “Well, I’m sure there’s enough people who’ve called me ‘odd’ in the past!” “That’s fair enough,” replied Ron, “but at least you opened your mouth and talked. Fancy a game of chess? Hermione’s already got her books out, and I’m not sure I can stomach that at the moment.” “I think I’ll pass,” said Harry distractedly, “I just need a bit of time to think at the moment.” Ron shrugged. “That’s why I need a game of chess, because there are things that I would rather not think about. I’ll try Neville or Seamus. See you later, mate.” Harry casually wondered if he had been neglecting Ron as a friend recently, but this matter would have to be addressed tomorrow. For now, he was taking full advantage of having just a little breathing space to call his own and time to go over all his immediate concerns. There had to be an explanation for Ginny’s behaviour on the train. He thought for a moment that she might be possessed, for the girl he knew would not have acted like that. She had been looking for someone, but whom? The more he thought about it, the more it worried and confused him. He felt a headache coming on, and so tried to think about something else; his meeting with the Headmistress tomorrow morning, perhaps. It was a pretty safe bet that his teachers for both Occlumency and Advanced Magical Defense would be Ministry Aurors, or possibly members of The Order of the Phoenix, but he couldn’t really hazard a guess as to who they would be. Though it was all to train him for a perilous task, he couldn’t help feeling a strong twinge of excitement thinking about the things he would learn. There was always part of him that wished he had Sirius as a teacher. He stared into the common room fire and recalled to himself the times he had spoken to his Godfather through that very fireplace. Sirius would have made an excellent teacher, he decided. The warmth of the room and the comfort of the chair were making him very drowsy, and for the second time that day, he fell into a peaceful sleep. Images floated gracefully through his head. Sirius, Ginny, Ron, Hermione, none of whom were doing anything in particular, just staring at him. The faces began to fade, and now he was standing on a pathway, out in the middle of the countryside, that led to a large white cottage. He walked up to the house, looking around him to make sure this wasn’t some kind of trick. As he drew near, he noticed that the front door hadn’t just been opened, but blown into pieces that lay either side of the doorway. He stepped cautiously inside and saw the appalling state of the kitchen and living room. Furniture had been thrown everywhere; boxes emptied all over the floor, ornaments smashed, and in the middle of the wreckage lay the body of a man. Though Harry suspected immediately that the man was dead, he ventured up the stairs rather than investigate further. He listened as hard as he could, and eventually heard the sound of fearful breathing. The sound became clearer as he moved towards the door of a large oak cupboard. With his wand drawn, he reached forward and tried to open it. The door was locked, but the breathing was now louder, faster, and more panicked. “Alohomora,” he whispered, and the door sprung open. He was staring into the eyes of a petrified Dale Tulstan. “Dale?” he said calmly, “Dale, it’s alright. It’s…” Before he could finish, he realised that it was no longer Dale, but Ginny who was now crouching in the cupboard. “Don’t worry Harry,” she said weakly, “I know you tried your best.” Her eyes turned to a piercing red, and now he leapt back in shock as she suddenly took the form of Nagini, the snake kept as a pet by Lord Voldemort. Nagini sprang forward at him, fangs bared with a hungry gaze. Just as the poisoned jaws found their mark on Harry’s neck, he was shaken back to reality by the sound of the portrait hole opening. He trembled slightly, took a deep breath and looked about him. The clock above the mantelpiece showed that it was now half past midnight, and Harry appeared to be alone. His eyes darted back to the portrait hole, and in stepped Ginny. “Wha…what have you been doing all this time?” he asked. There came no reply. Ginny was smiling now, and everything about her manner seemed positive. She walked up to him and, without a word, pulled him out of the chair. As she ran her fingertips down the side of his face, Harry still looked very confused. “Ginny, wha…?” She stopped his mouth with a kiss that also stole his breath. This seemed to wipe his mind blank. He could hear music inside his head, tingling in his fingertips, and the creature inside him was attempting to claw his way to freedom. As he savoured this image, he felt that his mind must have been playing tricks on him, for he suddenly heard what sounded like the distant roar of a lion echoing around the walls of the common room. Ginny could feel him tense up, and took him gently by the hand as she finally released his bottom lip. “Do you hear that?” asked Harry, still stunned and trying to get his breath back. “It’s Godric,” she whispered, motioning to the wall behind him. Harry turned around, then gaped in surprise as he saw the lion on the Gryffindor crest looking down at the two of them and opening its mouth wide as another roar issued forth. It wasn’t especially loud, but they could both feel it as well as hear it. Ginny took advantage of his dumbfounded silence. “Come on, Harry,” she said, leading him towards the boys’ dormitory, “You look like you could do with a drink and a lie down.” All of this didn’t seem real to Harry. It was as if he was outside his own body, simply observing flashes of what was happening to him. Maybe it was the fact that he had grown up around muggles, but the wizarding world continued to amaze him, and now, so did Ginny. They had been lying on Harry’s bed for nearly an hour, slowly sipping his bottle of firewhisky. It warmed stomachs and calmed nerves while they whispered to each other. As soon as Harry had put his thoughts in order, he had probed Ginny about her behaviour that day, and about her lengthy meeting with Professor McGonagall. Her answers made him feel sure that the spirit of Professor Dumbledore was alive and well, for he had been the only person from whom Harry would have accepted the reply “I’ll tell you when the time is right.” There was something so purely honest about her, that Harry had no choice but to trust in that judgment. From what he could tell, McGonagall had made her feel a lot more comfortable with the crisis she was going through, and it seemed that he would just have to be content knowing that she was feeling better. There was still that nagging sensation inside him, like an itch he had to scratch, that he needed to know everything, but he couldn’t remember any lessons on drawing blood out of a stone. “Harry, can I ask you something?” said Ginny, as they lay staring up at the ceiling. “Anything you want,” came the reply. “What do muggles know about our world?” Harry stopped to think about this for a while. There were many laws laid down by the Ministry concerning this. Their very way of life depended on total secrecy from muggles, but he couldn’t really be sure how well this had been enforced over the years. “Well, I suppose my Aunt and Uncle know more about it than most others, as much as they wish they didn’t,” said Harry, “but I really couldn’t say for sure. There can’t be many who know about us, and any that do probably keep quiet in case people think they’re mad. They’d probably try and hunt us all down if they knew, especially if the rest of them are anything like my Uncle Vernon.” Ginny sighed in a way that suggested she still thirsted for knowledge on the subject. “I feel sorry for them,” she replied, “From what you and Dad have told me, they never believe anything that isn’t just placed in front of them, and they fear anything that they don’t understand.” “Yes, that’s true enough,” he nodded, mulling the point over in his mind, “but there are times when I truly envy them.” On hearing this, she turned over and looked at Harry as if he had gone insane. “Why the hell would you envy them?” Harry lazily drew his wand and conjured two small glasses on his bedside table. “Fancy one last drink?” he enquired, slurring his words a little. “Alright, just one more,” she smiled, “And you’d better make that your last one as well!” He tipped his head in agreement, then levitated the bottle and poured two measures of firewhisky. They clinked their glasses in a wordless toast and both drained them in one. “Now,” said Harry, as seriously as he could, “what you just saw were some simple conjuring and levitation charms. You’ve seen it done many times, and most likely done it yourself.” Ginny nodded, wondering what kind of point he was trying to make. “So you really think nothing of it. By the time you wake up tomorrow, you could well have forgotten all about it.” Again, she indicated that she was following his logic. He leaned in close to her, and looked again into those spellbinding eyes. “A muggle, on the other hand, would see two glasses appear out of nowhere, and a whiskey bottle pour itself. Once they knew that they weren’t dreaming or imagining things, they would remember it as being nothing short of a miracle. They would remember it until the day they died. So many things we take for granted are what muggles could only dream about, and there is only one kind of magic that muggles share with us.” Ginny gazed back at him, hanging on every word, and feeling that same silly crush on him that she had known six years ago, and so many other things at once. “What kind is that?” she asked, noticing how close his mouth was to hers. “The kind that I felt in my stomach the first time I kissed you.” As they sank into each others’ arms, Harry was very grateful for the Muffliato spell that ensured that they would not be overheard. |
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