Azkaban 9

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Mystical Cash Cow of the EA Returns to lulu

Yes, the one shot of Harry Potter video game reviews has returned to lulu... maybe I'll do another one one of these days, another Harry Potter review book. Maybe (if people start to snap up this edition and show me that people are interested in seeing more).

Will We Ever See Mystical Cash Cow ot the EA Return?

If I win over www.lulu.com on the topic of review titles (titles containing reviews which, last I checked, does not fall under any copyright laws) then we might see it return... though this time, when it returns, would someone please pick up a few downloads? Please! Come on!

If we ever do reviews again I have a few new pieces of Rowling lore to talk about to boot... lest we forget the humble beginnings of J.K. Rowling' charity fundraising.

Azkaban 8

Azkaban Episode 8

It was at that moment, after the first class of Defense Against the Dark Arts, that Alicia formed a differing opinion from the others she usually agreed with.
As expected, Defense Against the Dark Arts zoomed into the stratosphere and became most people’s favorite class… with the exception of certain Slytherins, and one very unimpressed Alicia Spinnet.

“Look at the state of his robes,” Malfoy grumbled in a loud “whisper” as Professor Lupin passed. “He dresses like our old hou--” (FWACK!!) “--!!!”
Alicia, passing by Malfoy in turn, sneered at him. “Blah blah blah.”

Her dislike of the class seemed to grow once she went to the second class and got a taste of Redcaps. These creatures, goblinlike entities that haunted places of bloodshed, briefly broke free during the class only to get a good hard look at Alicia, and promptly look as if they were about to cry (before being “caught”).
“I’m not that violent.” Alicia muttered, her eyes wandering over towards the rather ravenous Hermione who seemed to be more intent on eating lunch than talking. “Is it time for your flea medicine yet, Hermione dear? Otherwise your coat seems to be nice and shiny… matches your wolf-like appetite.”

Nothing. She continued to eat without either stopping or looking up. “Is your nose moist? You’re in good health if you have a wet nose…“ Silence. Nothing she said seemed to rouse the slightest reaction from Hermoine as of late, the story of Alicia’s life lately it seems. When she wasn’t eating she was studying like crazy, and when she wasn’t studying like crazy she was sleeping or doing disappearing acts or something. Weird. She’s been weird ever since she came to school this year and her oddness hasn’t stopped for a single second. Disappointing.

If anything the discouraging turn of events with Hermione seemed to make her hate Defense Against The Dark Arts all the more, if only to the fact that it was something that made other people happy (which she presently didn’t feel like being right now). Third class didn’t help her change her opinion about the class as she continued to lose interest in the class the moment she entered the third class and Kappas was the topic.

Most of the class got the very normal cranky gripey pissed off reaction as the Kappa looked at them, watching each and everyone pass by with a look of total hate. But as Alicia went up to it it stopped looking cranky, and… started singing in it’s mind. For a thing that enjoyed long walks on large lakesides and strangling wandering people it sure had a bad habit of latching onto the wrong people… like Alicia.

“I blame Animal Crossing for it’s ill attempt at courting.” Alicia grumbled, knowing that she was effectively talking to herself now. Ron and Harry were reading the latest Quidditch Quarterly while they were eating, and nobdoy else was nearby to listen to her complain. How wonderous for Alicia (she said to herself).

Potions was easier for her, and everyone, since Alicia had a conversation with Snape right after the whole Boggart incident. At first Snape fumed and flared at the mention of the class, but she knew he would so she went right to the throat and said “Guess having an old class bully as an associate sucks, eh?”
That silenced his complaints dead on, and no more was heard from him on the topic.

It was no coincidence that Lupin picked out Neville for the first go with the Boggart, or for the finale. He knew that Neville had problems with Snape (who didn’t know that) and he used it just for the results that happened. “Despite the fact he is supposed to be so “mature” he still seems to get his jollies off mocking you.” Alicia muttered, leaning back in the chair next to Snape’s desk staring at the ceiling, “Childish, eh?” Snape did not respond, but he wasn’t grumbling either now so she knew he agreed with her. “By the way got turned down for that transfer, eh? Always the birdesmaid and never the bride.”

“You have no idea.” he finally muttered, still working on the paperwork before him.
But the point was reached. Snape didn’t give anyone the time of day who tried to draw him into the whole Boggart thing, and if they did they soon found themselves with sufficent “reason” to “drop it” (though nobody would say what “reasoning” Snape used to convince them of the error of their ways).
‘Just as well,’ Alicia thought to herself, ‘Not interested in the inner workings of the socially insecure considering my own social life seems to be in the toilet lately.’

If only Divinations was as easy…. Too bad it wasn’t.
Between trading an endless stream of “I know the future better than you” retorts with Trelawney, she was puzzling over the confusing and very Rube Goldberg styles of divination that Trelawney seemed to love to make them learn. Some of the girls like Parvati Patil and Lavendar Brown became so obsessed with the class that they spent their lunchtimes in there, but Alicia just couldn‘t see the appeal in that kind of obsessive compulsive behavior. One time Angelina & Katie said they wanted to go to these lunchtime divinations, until Alicia shook her head and said “They’re not making out in class during lunch, you know. Just so you know.” and that silenced that from the two. Too bad that was the only “silence” from them.

Otherwise they were all about the school like newlyweds, holding hands and giggling together and sharing food and what-not. They traipsed around the school like girls in love, and yes they were girls in love… but still, that was abit much for Alicia who wished it was her on cloud 9 like they were.

Now if she could only convince her “keeper” May that class wasn’t for making out despite the fact she seemed to do nothing but fawn over Neville in class a lot then she‘d be happier, especially since she had no more respect for Divination than the often uptight and irritated Hermione (who had a hate of Trelawney that was even worst than Alicia’s own dislike of the teacher) that would be a sense of progress for her. Anyway at least, thankfully, she wasn’t Harry Potter. Trelawney keeps staring at him expecting him to drop dead at any moment… or self destruct… or drop dead and self destruct. Whatever floated her crystal ball.

The most interesting class, for all the wrong reasons, was Hagrid’s. It didn’t rate quite as high as Defense Against the Dark Arts, but it had it’s rabid followers since a certain somebody quickly moved in to keep Hagrid from becoming discouraged after the events of his first class.

Somehow May convinced him to carry on, and while the class lineups sure looked interesting enough, the entire class was all smoke and mirrors with much flash and bang and no substance. The creatures now appearing in the class looked fierce enough, and for all intents and purposes they seemed hot blooded and hard core to the unknowing students… but that was all a lie.

It all started with the second class and the appearance of the Greywall SaberBlades, Elfin wolves that supposidly ran into battle with battalions of elfin warriors, that the “gig“ was effectively “up“ for Alicia. They looked the part and were quite impressive, but were as much real wolves as Alicia was straight. The Greywall SaberBlades were, in fact, shapeshifters who performed nightly in a Edenina version of Las Vegas (based in the same location as Vegas on Terra, the Earthian dream moon). They looked cool, did their thing fine, and seemed genuine… but were faker than Malfoy‘s “personality“ (which was truly fake) if only to Alicia who had actually seen their act when she was -- well, when she was her other self in the past.

The rest, as expected, came from the Las Vegas Primetime Show Revue after that, totally cool to look at but with very little actual threat. Obviously this was a win-win for Hagrid : He won because the creatures were impressive and class favorites, and he won because the creatures were also quite safe to work with and guaranteed no more incidents like the first day. Nice but really… at this point Alicia almost expected May to import a batch of white tigers from the Siegfred & Roy catalog soon and pass them off as rare elfin housecats… it had to happen, especially since the last batch looked like they came from the Barnum & Bailey Dream Circus performing over at the NekoDrome nightly (thrice on weekends).

At the start of October, however, Alicia began to find a new thing to trouble her already worry plagued year (if her year couldn‘t be anymore troubled than it already was). It wasn’t bad enough that she was having a hard time bonding with Hermione, while runaway romance couple roommates Angelina & Katie were going all out in their romance, now something else had to bite into her time and take up more of it than she was willing to give up : Quidditch practice.

The time had come for the Quidditch season to begin, and this year would be a hardship since they had a basketcase of a “fearless leader” who, after spending months stalking each and every one of them, was ready for his nervous breakdown. That day came one Thursday as he called everyone into the locker rooms on the Quidditch pitch near the school.

The room was ghastly cold. It was as if the spectre of doom hovered in the room, mocking Wood, chilling him to his very soul… along with everyone else unlucky enough to be in the same room with him at that exact moment and that exact time.
“Damn his Demon Lord of Terror.” Alicia hissed beneath her breath, wishing she had worn her cold protected battle uniform beneath her usual robes. “I’m going to die of frostbite and haunt Wood forever.”

Oliver Wood, pacing about, looked like he was about to start crying. The burly 17 year old had this rather obvious (though still creepily silent) desperation about him as he paced about like a caged animal, his voice strained a little as he finally addressed everyone in the chilled room (the light from outside fading fast as night began to fall over the land).

“This is our last chance -- my last chance -- to win the Quidditch Cup,” he told them, pacing up and down in front of them nervously, “I’ll be leaving at the end of this year. I’ll never get another shot at it.”
An errie silence fillled the room briefly as he gathered his thoughts, before forging forward with his pre-prepared and pre-rehearsed speech (that Alicia has already been victimzed by four hours prior as he had caught her in an empty class and made her listen to it).

“Gryffindor hasn’t won for seven years running. Seven years… sure, we’ve had the worst damnable luck in the world it seems, what with injuries and the tournament being called off due to the whole thing over the Basilisk…” Wood spoke, swallowing hard as he remembered that incident with particular bitterness. “But despite all that we also know that we’ve got the best -- damn -- ruddy -- team -- in -- the -- whole school!” he hissed, forcing each words from his lips one at a time, swinging his fist hard punching it into his open hand, as if to punctuate that statement.

“We’ve got three superb Chasers.”
Alicia nodded absently, her eyes glancing over towards the attentive Angelina & Katie, almost muttering “Two lovesick Chasers” but thinking better of it.
“We’ve got two unbeatable Beaters.”

“Stop it, Oliver, you’re embarrassing us!” Fred and George chorous together, to which Alicia almost wanted to hiss “Not likely.”

“And we’ve got a Seeker who has never failed to win us a match!”
Finally Alicia’s eyes spun to Harry, who sat attentive without any remarks like the Weasley brothers.
“And me,” Wood finally completed, almost as an afterthought.
“We think you’re very good too, Oliver.” George said, finally focusing on someone other than himself.
“Spanking good Keeper,” Fred chimed in.

“The point is,” Oliver continued, not wanting for a second to be thrown from his speech (as if he was afraid he would not be able to continue if he stopped even for a second), “the Quidditch Cup should have had our name on it these last two years. Ever since Harry joined the team, I’ve thought the thing was in the bag. But we haven’t got it, and this year’s the last chance we’ll get to finally see our name on the thing…”

‘Sure it’s not going to be just your and Harry’s name on it?’ Alicia thought to herself, almost sighing as she leaned back, hands automatically rubbing to keep herself warm.

* * * * * *

At that the team started training three evenings a week.
The weather only got worst. It got colder and colder, and wetter and wetter, with the evenings growing darker and darker… and yet that didn’t stop them from training three days a week, even if it killed Alicia (which it didn’t). While the mud, wind, or rain didn’t diminish some of their dreams of the cup, Alicia didn’t seem particularly hot on it despite the fact she was giving her 100% every practice.
And so Alicia returned to the Common Room one night wasted, eyes abit bleary as she stumbled in only to find everyone up and excited over something. Barely falling into the couch near the two fireside chairs now occupied by Ron and Hermione (nearly missing Harry as she did), Alicia flopped over the side of the couch and muttered “What’s up…”

“”First Hogsmeade weekend coming up,” Ron said excitedly, trying to copy Hermione’s Astronomy chart whenever she turned her back to talk to Harry (only to get his hand smacked everytime he tried). “End of October. Halloween.”

“Excellent,” Fred said as he filed in seconds after Alicia, “I need to visit Zonko’s. I’m nearly out of Stink Pellets.”

“You stink enough on your own.” Alicia muttered, feeling the depression only growing at the announcement. So it had finally come, the trip to Hogsmeade, wonderous. She couldn’t get her paper signed and had dreaded this moment that was to come… and now it has come. That means Hemione would be able to go, which means she would FINALLY get out of study mode… which Alicia couldn’t exploit since she couldn’t go with her… talk about a disappointing turn of events!

Hermione, misreading Alicia’s glum features, said “Alicia, I’m sure you’ll be able to go next time.”
Talk about being the queen of wishful thinking… waitaminute!
“I think I got an idea.” Alicia muttered, eyes glittering abit as a thought occurred to her. A nasty wonderful brilliant little thought.

Suddenly, before Hermione could inquire, Crookshank appeared and leaped on her lap, a dead spider dangling from it’s weird little mouth. That was gross.
“Does he have to eat that in front of us?” Ron muttered, scowling.
“Clever Crookshanks, did you catch that all by yourself?” said Hermione, almost cooing over the gigantic furball sitting on her lap. “I’m going to throw up all over it’s fur.” Alicia muttered, closing her eyes tight.

As if to end the night Ron did the taboo thing of offering to allow Harry and Alicia to copy his already partially copied star chart, and then the fuss he kicked up when Crookshanks tried to add Scabbers to the menu as an after dinner snack… spider and rat, not yummy. Obviously Alicia didn’t have much of an appetite for chocolate after watching that.

* * * * * *

It was bad enough that Ron and Hermione seperated on a bad mood last night.
Ron, true to form, clung onto his bad mood as he would a prized Quidditch collectible when the sun rose on a brand new day, chosing to wallow in his own bitterness rather than even try to get over last night.

The bitter little pill was a pain during Herbology, which was a pain since he, Hermione and Harry were working together to take care of the same Puffapod. Alicia fared no better since she got stuck with Quidditch teammates Angelina and Katie as partners.

Angelina sighed a near breathless giggle, her finger deftly tickling the top of Katie’s hand as they slowly worked on pulling the stripped fat pink pods from the puffapods. Katie smirked and returned the motion, alternating between playing finger tag and pulling pods. Alicia, the very visage of annoyance, pulled her pods mindlessly as she worked. “Can you at least wait until lunch before you two make out?”

“We’re not making out.” Angelina muttered, her goofy grin never leaving her face once.
“Careful, Weasley, careful!” Professor Sprout cried from behind, nearly causing Alicia to spill her beans onto the floor (adding to the mess already caused by Ron). “…I need my very own sexfriend.”
The rest of the class was spent in moody silence, stuck with watching her teammates make goggily eyes.
“P.S.” Alicia muttered, “My practice Quaffle isn’t your sexaide, please stop tribading with it…” (silence) “…at least pay me rent for it everytime you mount it dammit… or make me a home vid sphere for private use… something.”

Transfiguration was boring, especially since Alicia’s plan had nothing to do with Professor McGonagall. She waited for Potions, because her plan was to go straight to Snape and get him to do the deed for her. A good idea, especially since she had sufficent “pull” to get him to bend… didn’t she?

The moment she had a free chance to grab him she did just that. She quickly went straight to Snape, jumping into his free chair as she looked at him intently. “I need you to forge me a permission form.” Snape, barely looking up from his work, narrowed his eyes abit at the thought. “I didn’t think you were so hot and bothered to go to a place like Hogsmeade.”

“What can I say, my love life is dead (you know THAT situation all too well don‘t you).” she answered honestly, “Gimme a break.”

His pen began scratching on the parchment he had before him, slowly writing on it as he barely glanced up at Alicia, “I’m afraid not, Spinnet. Maybe you should have spent more time “buttering” up the head of your own house if you were planning on using your “charms” to gain favors, because I can’t help you since you are not of my own house.”

“Never stopped you before from meddling in the affairs of other houses.” Alicia shot halfheartedly, trying to widdle away at his iron clad defense, realizing immediately that she really wasn’t as interested in Hogsmeade as in just finding time to get close to Hermione.
“The form clearly states that only a parent or a guardian may give permission, and I am most certainly neither of those.” Snape remarked coldly, continuing to write as he spoke. “But leaving the castle should be no real problem for you. All you have to do, after all, is have your Dementor friends cover your retreat.”

“Which leaves me screwed when I get back though.” Alicia countered.

“Ah…” Snape hissed in a rather unpleasant way, “…my point exactly.”
She hated it when he was so damn smug. Though, for once, she conceited that he had a reason to be so. She sucked sinking this low even if it was for her waning love life.

* * * * * *

And that, as they say, was that.
Deciding to call it a failure, Alicia conceited that she wouldn’t be going to Hogsmeade this year and thought it was (after all) for the best. “Not like I can’t go to London if I really really need something.” she noted, which she (in fact) could (secretly of course). “So I’m not exactly missing out.”
Ron, however, didn’t take the news of Harry’s failing so well. In fact he kind of lost it.
He began to call Professor McGonagall everything under the sun and stars that he could think of, and when pressed to “duty” it seemed that he was capable of thinking of quite a few unpleasant things to say (half of which met with great displeasure from Hermione).

Hermione, in her even toned way, assumed that this was all “for the best” which, well, really didn’t do anything to cheer up either Harry or Alicia in the slightest bit.
Ron, as expected, got only angrier at Hermione’s easy going attitude… all the while Harry & Alicia had to endure the endless rattling on from classmates about their well-laid plans for Hogsmeade weekend.

“The best laid plans of overplanning people.” Alicia sighed, not caring anymore to count the amount of people who were going to go into a sugar induced coma while in Hogsmeade as compared to the people who were going to try and “score” while away from school.
“There’s always the feast,” Ron said cheerily, trying to muster his own level of even going attitude in light of the dim chance of McGonagall changing her mind about Harry (or Alicia though he labored in misconception about Alicia asking her in the first place). “You know, the Halloween feast, in the evening.”

“Thank you ever so you great glowing sun of conformity.” Alicia muttered, staring blankly at Ron. “I think I liked you better when you were ranting like a lunatic.”
‘Face it.’ Alicia thought as she leaned back in her seat, ‘I have about as much interest in Hogsmeade as I do in working at the local SpellMart as a greeter.’ (bleah) ‘I just want to be near Hermione the moment she snaps out of her study fixation and becomes normal again… if such a thing was inhumanly possible.’

Dean Thomas, who was good with quill and hand, offered to forge Uncle Vernon’s name and the name of Alicia’s parents, but it was way too late for that by now… pity he didn’t offer that a month ago.
Ron tried to suggest the invisibility cloak only to be reminded about the Dem-- suddenly Ron jumped at Alicia and tried to make her “escort” Harry through the Dementors only for her to shoot it down right off. “They’re hot on Potter for some ungodly reason.” she noted with a slight bit of irritation in her voice, “They’ll be drawn to him like flies to liquid sugar! We wouldn’t get five feet outside of the school before they rush him, which would end in a failing firefight running battle right back to the school in defeat!”

Percy, bless his evil soul, had the worst thing to say to them when he said “They make a fuss about Hogsmeade, but I assure you two that it’s not all it’s cracked up be…” (then he stopped) “…alright, there is the sweetshop which is rather spot on good, then there’s Zonko’s Joke Shop (which I introduced Fred & George too no matter what they say), and yes, the Shrieking Shack’s always worth a visit, but--”
Alicia clamps her hand onto Percy’s mouth to silence him.
“Please stop. We can’t take anymore good cheer and positive commentary from you.”

* * * * * *

Finally the day came. Halloween day.
On Halloween morning Alicia slowly dragged herself out of bed, abit worst for wear all things considered.
‘Well,’ she silently mused, ‘It’s not like I have any reason to wake up early today.’
So, with that she decided to stay in bed (after going down for food and packing enough in one of her tesseract jewels to keep to the room all day).
Hermione made a promise to deliver sweets to her and Harry, which kind of cheered her up… though not really since she was only beginning to thaw from her relentless bookworminess, with the full meltdown happening out of her range. Bummer.

She didn’t accompany them to the entrance, but eventually she did leave the girl’s quarters to wander the school if only to stretch her legs from her longer than normal bedstay. It was during this wandering that she ran into Flitch abruptly, who regarded her with a strange expression. He didn’t say a word, but he seemed to have something on the tip of his tongue that he wouldn’t… or couldn’t… spit out.
“Whatever.” she sighed in resentment, waving him off as she walked off. “Life sucks for us misfit humans.”

So intent on getting away from Flitch, she wandered aimlessly until he walked right into the opening door of the last person she wanted to see at that moment… Lupin. Shocked, he nearly stumbled out of the doorway towards the now stunned Alicia, who took the door full on in her face and was now on her butt looking about in a confused manner. “Sorry, I didn’t see you there. What are you doing here?” he asked, genuine concern in his voice, “Where are Ron & Hermione?”

“Don’t you want to know where Harry is?” she asked, to which he said “Harry told me they went to Hogsmeade.”

“If you knew that already…” Alicia hissed in response, “…don’t ask me what you already know.”
And, with that, she pulled herself to her feet as Lupin looked on, “I was only trying to…uh…” (slight sigh) “How about a drink? I just got a grindylow for our next lesson, maybe you’d like to see it.”

‘Maybe it’d like to see me more like it.’ Alicia pondered silently, but relented to being taken in.
As she followed Lupin into the office she noticed the gigantic water tank, and the sickly green creature staring at her from inside the tank. The creature, with sharp little horns, had it’s face pressed tightly against the glass of the tank, making faces and flexing it’s long long fingers… until Alicia bolted forward and nearly slammed her face into the tank, giving the creature a dreadful fright and sending it flying into the weeds in the corner of the tank.

“Uh… that might be a water demon, but you don’t need to give it a heart attack.” Lupin remarked, motioning towards the tank as he passed Alicia. “You really shouldn’t have much difficulty with him, not after tha kap--” (Alicia’s face turns ashen) “--oh, right, the amorous Kappa. Uh… anyway --” (cough cough) “-- the trick is to break it’s grip, it’s fingers is very long but also very brittle… see?” (motions to his hands now filled) “Cup of tea?”

“No thanks.” Alicia declined, “I’m set.” she said as she pulled a bottle of soda from a tessaract.
“By the way, just out of curiousity…” Lupin asked, fishing… “About your Boggart confrontation…”

“Fear of being alone.” Alicia responded, getting a bit of a nod from Lupin, who said no more on it.
An awkward silence filled the room between them as Lupin struggled to find a common ground with the morbidly silent Spinnet. “I better get going.” Alicia announced suddenly, standing up. As she did she noticed the strange smoking potion on Lupin’s desk, “You’re taking up liquid pot smoking these days?”

“It’s from Severus… Professor Snape.” Lupin answered, pulling another long (distasteful) drink from the goblet as he spoke, “I have never been much of a potion brewer, and this one is particularly complex.”

Alicia - “Yeah, it must suck that the only person capable of making it is the guy you treated like shit when you were both schoolmates, eh?”

Lupin’s eyes narrowed, his face froze, and not a word came from his lips.
“Your silence speaks volumes.” Alicia finished, walking out without another word, leaving Lupin alone.
“Apparently so.”

* * * * * *

“There you go!” Ron cried out, shoving a giant goody bag into Alicia’s arms as she returned to the common room, nearly knocking her over as she returned. Apparently they all returned while she was spending “quality” time with Lupin in his office. “We got as much as we could carry.”

Alicia reached into her robes and pulled out a fistful of gold, giving it over to Ron in turn, “Thanks.” (Hermione tried to make Ron return the gold, but Alicia sternly refused to the point that Ron accepted happily… if only not to get on Alicia’s bad side as opposed to getting on Hermione‘s bad side).

After that it was off to the verbal races as everyone told their tales as quickly (and as loud) as they could. With everyone going on it was no problem for Alicia to find a quiet spot in the room, sit down, and quietly pursue her bag of goodies while casually listening to the others talk. So much for warming Hermione up, as she was already going back to her uber talkative focused self already.

Eventually it was time to head down to the meal, Alicia tagging along at the rear of the line as they all headed down towards the Great Hall (their small group growing larger as they picked up other groups of students on their march to the Great Hall).
Once there Alicia’s mood improved, especially once they began to eat.
Maybe it was the décor, what with the hundreds and hundreds of pumpkins filled with burning candles (which somehow prompted Alicia to mumble the lyrics to Disco Inferno for some odd reason).
Maybe it was the strange cloud of live bats (thoughts of Batman occasionally poked into her mind).
Maybe it was the flaming orange streamers (thoughts of fire code violations also poked into her mind should the flaming pumpkins and the many streamers meet) which set the “sky” ablaze in color even as it was cloaked in darkness as a storm raged about the castle even as they sat down to eat.
But still, something about that night made the food just taste that much better for some reason.

The food was delicious, the company was pleasant, and even those who gorged on sweets from town managed to find room to eat… still, Alicia pondered, she wondered if there would be enough bathrooms on campus to handle several hundred chocolate overdosed hyperactive kids with bladder problems… she thought it best not to ponder it any further than that one inquiry, and to leave it to “nature” to sort out.

Professor Lupin looked his usual cheery self, a departure from his sudden moody swing as they talked earlier in the day. He was having a lively conversation with Professor Flitwick from Charms, who hopefully wasn’t one of his confidantes in teasing Snape when they were younger. ‘Does the headmaster ALWAYS like to put volitale teachers together in the same school…’ Alicia thought briefly, pondering why these two former enemies were put into this situation in the first place.

Snape, as par the course, was always glancing at Lupin. That didn’t surprise Alicia in the slightest, after all they had history so it’s no question that Snape still fostered lots of pent up aggrivation towards him (and for good reason no doubt since she didn’t know the details of his past with Snape).

The feast came to an end with entertainment provided by the Hogwarts ghosts, but that was all the entertainment Alicia was in the mood for as she silently sneaked out without a word to anyone.
On the walk up to Gryffindor Tower she had time to ponder what was going on.

She was being slowly stalked by an Assassin Guilder for reasons only he/it knew, which probably had to do with her ascension in power last year after claiming herself a new amulet and Heart core to channel her powers through.

She had these ghastly Dementor things who occasionally reported in to her as if she was their den mother or leader or whatever, which didn’t look good for her seeing how the school’s headmaster had a mad-on against the whole Dementor thing.

And she had to complete the year while trying to salvage any attempt at a romantic relationship with the intellectually burdened Hermione who seemed to only loosen up in Hogsmeade (which did Alicia no good because she couldn’t access Hogsmeade because she couldn’t get her paper signed)!
This was nothing but bad news for her.

It got worst when she approached the portrait of the Fat Lady and heard a scream.
She went into a quick run right away, ignoring all common sense as she ran right towards the sound of the scream without a second thought. There, she was quickly confronted by a looming figure of a man, cutting impliment in hand as he angrily slashed as the portrait trying to gain entry. The painting was torn open, and the barrier beyond was superficially damaged with the decorative wood broken apart and sticking out like a sharp wooden barrier against intrusion (the solid spell enhanced door itself standing fully intact from the assault).

As she stared at him something perculiar happened… she hesistated, allowing him enough time to move first. He quickly turned, and charged at her bringing her senses back into action. She dodged to one side, aiming up to fire at him, but he was too quick. Grabbing her outstreched hands he quickly swung her about, sending her flying into the damaged painting.

Her body was wracked with terrible sharp violating pain as she slammed headlong into the barrier blocking the entryway into the tower, a loud reverberating through her body as she hit with force into the obstruction.
Her mind struggled to pull herself together as she felt him quickly rush her. Blood must have been coming from her head as she felt a hot wetness, but she was certain it also came from her body as well.
Did she get impaled with wood shards? It felt as if her body was wracked with a terrible pain which was robing her of her senses, and perhaps even her life. A new scream filled her pained ears, but this time it wasn’t a woman’s… it was a man’s, and it sounded as if he was panicked about something.

But this was a minor thing to the all consuming pain that enveloped Alicia’s being. She struggled to stay awake, but the pain was too much for her to bear, the warmth of her own blood seemingly coaxing her body shutting down as every sense failed her. A few seconds passed, and then her mind and body betrayed her, shutting down from the excruciating pain that beat into her skull relentlessly. The last thing she remembers is the figure on top of her, and being held in his arms as he wretched her robes open.

* * * * * *

Harry, Ron and Hermione followed the rest of the Gryffindors along the usual path to the Tower, being the tail end of a long chain of students, but when they reached the corridor that ended with the portrait of the Fat Lady they found it jammed with students.

“Why isn’t anyone going in?” Ron asked, curiousity tinging his voice as he strained to look over the traffic jam of people that piled up ahead of them. Harry, also curious, peered over the heads in front of him, as of to confirm with his own eyes that the portrait was indeed closed (which it was).

Percy, pushing his way past, began to forge his way forward into the group in abit of a huff, “Let me through here, please,” he called out, pushing and shoving his way past, an air of self imposed “importance” beaming from him as he made his way through, “What’s the holdup here? You can’t all have forgotten the password -- excuse me, I’m Head Boy, excuse me…”

As he reached the front, however, silence reigned once again. Even his demanding voice ceased once he came to the sight that everyone beheld at the head of the line. Suddenly Percy screamed “Somebody get Professor Dumbledore, QUICKLY!!”

Everyone’s heads turned, as if waiting for the person behind them to do the deed, but not one moved from their spot. “What’s going on?” somebody (Ginny) asked as she joined Harry, Ron and Hermione.
Several long moments passed until somebody finally managed to get Professor Dumbledore, his robes sweeping dramatically as a “hole” was cleared into the crowd to allow him access. As everyone quickly moved to either side of the corridor to allow him access, the trio of Harry, Ron and Hermione moved forward to get a better look.

“Oh, no!” Hermione choked, tears welling up in her eyes as she looked towards the painting.
The Fat Lady had vanished from her portrait, which had been slashed viciously to the point that “debris“ of the painting lied scattered about. The decorative door covering was broken and shattered, with several shards of it lying about the floor. But it was the floor that drew the most attention. There, lying on top of her own robes, was Alicia Spinnet. Her body was face down, legs spread and arms sprawled up as if she was on all fours and fell over in a heap. Her back was scarred with several large wounds (magically healing as they watched), with several wooden fragment to one side stained in her blood.

Her breathing was slow, labored but slow. She was in no pain now it seemed, and her wounds seemed to have been cared for as she was in no immediate danger of dying. Still, the condition she was left in left little to the imagination. Dumbledore quickly took her into his arms, pulling her robes over her body as he held her tightly in his strong grasp. His eyes somberly turned towards the approaching Professors McGonagall, Lupin and Snape as they hurried towards him. Snape, at first stone face, went pale as he saw her in his arms.

“We need to find the Fat Lady,” Dumbledore said gravely. “Professor McGonagall, please go to Mr. Flich at once and tell him to search every painting in the castle for the Fat Lady.”

“A wasted effort.” a dark grim voice called out. All heads quickly looked towards the end of the corridor to notice that they were being watched by a reptilian thing with shiny metal technology grafted to it’s head and spine. It stared at them with it’s emotionless face, silence reigning as they watched him… until a burst of robes whirled past Harry, Ron and Hermione with a yell of “KILL IT!!”

Spell shots rang out, hitting the reptilian dead on, only to cause it no damage. It flickered, showing a glowing sphere within the translucent “form” of the creature. “If you are quite done…”
Dumbledore grabbed ahold of Snape, pulling him back as the Galerian watched them. Several students, who pulled their wands at the cry of “KILL IT” slowly put their wands back, looking awkward.

“With all of you spell throwers I had to adjust my tactics in an environment like this. This holo-drone usit is now protected against energy attacks -- it’s only weakness being a pure all out physical assault on the “heart” which, I am assure you, none of you are capable of delivering. Now, if we are done flinging power shots about… you are looking for the amply built fascimile woman known rather non P.C. as The Fat Lady, I take it.”

Silence. He knew they were all paying attention to him, and he was carefully and skillfully working the crowd to his advantage. “She is abit… distressed. She doesn’t want to be seen, oh no, she’s in quite a bit of a mess she is. Last I saw of her she was running through the landscapes on the fourth floor of this complex, dodging between the fascimile trees as she did. She was…” (it spreads it’s claws outwards drawing his already rapt audience’s attention tighter onto him) “…crying something fierce. Very emotional for a faux humanoid most certainly.”

(The Galerian’s presence was very attention grabbing… must have been since no attempts by Ron to get Hermione to tell him what “fascimile” and “faux” was.)

“Did she say who did it?” Dumbledore asked quietly, his eyes boring down solidly on the Galerian. “Oh yes, I did see that seeing how it was my drone unit who saw her just minutes ago, while I myself witnessed the whole affair down here…” (motioning towards Alicia) “…he did get quite angry when the Fat Lady refused him entry, but I guess prison life made him hungry for the finer things in life since he did take time after saving her to… “save” her.” The Galerian holo-image began to back away, towards the exit, never looking away for an instance from it’s audience. “But I guess prison life does that to people like Sirius Black… now, if you’ll…”

It said no more. A large hand grabbed it, and crushed the protective shell shield about the holosphere shattering it in his hand. Hagrid, brushing the metallic remains from his hand, looked at the crowd with a bit of a frown marring his usually jovial features. “Guess being all muscles have it’s advantages now and again, eh?”

To Be Continued

Azkaban 7

Azkaban Episode 7

(NOTE - Check previous Azkaban chapters for disclaimer at start of fanfic)

The Galerian Assassin Guilder was dropping fast right at her, arms wide open to land a killing blow. Alicia was in no condition to counterattack, her body wracked with pain from her hastily cast counter to protect Hermione, as she rolled over to see -- a robed female blocking her with arms outstretched. Alicia was confused, who was it… the form was transparent so it was clearly a spell of some kind, but who… it felt so familiar, but she was trying to hard to…

A spell out of nowhere snipes the Galerian out of the air, bringing it crashing right into Hagrid’s waiting arms. He grabs it by the neck as it falls, and with one hard swing he delivers a killing blow that shatters the creatures spinal column killing it instantly. As Hagrid tosses the corpse aside Alicia tries to pull herself up, bloodsoaking now half of her body from neck to torso, the world fading about her as she felt her senses abandon her due to her blood loss. She tried to scream, but nothing would come out… she had to warn…

Another spell hit the beast in midtoss, knocking it further into the woods where it exploded, it’s internal core ruptured by it’s death going critical mass and blowing up. However Hagrid was more concerned with Alicia than himself as he scooped her up into his huge arms and carted her quickly towards the castle, muttering “Yer not dyin’ on me! Yer not dyin’ on me! Yer not dyin’…”

Optimistic to the end. That’s Hagrid for you. She was soaked halfway through with her own blood, and even her own healing factor seemed to have failed her, but he wasn’t going to give up on her yet. Those were the last thoughts she had before slipping into unconsciousness.

There was something painfully familiar about the female that saved her… something…

* * * * * *

She was surrounded by water.

She was lugging someone towards the surface, the light above that shimmered as she kicked furiously towards it… feeling as if she was almost out of time…

“…please don’t be angry…”

The light grew closer and closer as her breath trapped in her chest grew fainter.

It was so close now. She just had to power through and break into the sunlight.

“…I didn’t know it would be like this…”

Where he was waiting. She felt there was someone she had to get to.

Break free of the water, get to him fast, and kill --

“…he has feelings too… please don‘t hurt him…”

The darkness seemed comforting to her, even as she drew close to the light above.
She felt that she wasn’t going to die after all, but yet there was lots that needed answering.
How did it get so close that it could do this without…

“…but I made up my mind, and my heart… I chose…”

Then realization set in. The answer that was at the edge of her mind as the surface of the lake was at the edge of her reach.
The whole school, and for miles about, was covered in a sense of darkness.
This was a side effect of the Dementors, and there was nothing she could about it.
This veil, this darkness, was something that occurred naturally because of their “nature”.
It was like a shroud of night which obscured all mystical “sight“, and made singling out a specific source of darkness within this dark field impossible. In other words she would be operating “blind” this time out.

Sure, as she had been close to them before she had gotten used to the feel of the Dementors, and since she knew she had to “interact” with them she was prepared to shove aside their ill feeling to the point of ignoring it. She was so quickly used to blocking out the sense of darkness from them that she didn’t even think twice about the “energy” they gave off. Bad mistake.

They were there to protect the school, but instead they were creating an artificial “black out” which made it now entirely possible for anything to slip in without being detected.
In the end their help, as well meaning as it might have been, was only hurting the cause.
And, come to think of it, it was hurting right now… badly. But that was her injuries talking.

The second thing on her mind was her two “saviors”.
The female who shielded her, but who she couldn’t see clearly.
Whose voice she was certain was talking in her mind as she swam to the surface, but too faint for her to recognize to “speaker”.
Then there was the one who shot down the Galerian as it attacked, and gave Hagrid the chance to kill it. His or her identity was also shrouded in mystery.

Confusion. Riddles. It seemed that if there were answers to these two questions that they weren’t present as of yet. That’s when the darkness began to lift, and the splash of water added to the welcome taste of fresh air as she hit the surface, she woke.

“ALICIA!!”

The first sight she came to was Gryffindors around her, looking at her anxiously.
The second sight confused her, because there was a group of Slytherin also standing around her, also watching her as she came out of it.
“…I take it this isn’t the morbid curiosity of watching someone die…” she muttered.

“You going to be alright?” someone asked, and to her shock that someone was… Malfoy?
He was standing near her looking dead serious, but she couldn’t help but feel how… wrong it was. She dismissed everyone, after much hugging and gifts and words of encouragement, leaving her alone with Malfoy. She looked at him, glanced at him up and down and asked the obvious…

“He’s not here, isn’t he?”

Malfoy shrugged, shuffled his feet, and then said “A little bit of him is, but he’s in the backseat being silent after a threat of a lobotomy. Such a pain he is, but after the second time in one day he seems used to being the passenger, he even realizes he has you to thank for the fact he isn‘t dead right about now.”

A tired sigh escapes her lips as she pulls herself into a sitting position. “The last thing I need is you making things “better” by interfering, you know that.”

“C’mon,” Jack Lazarus pried, nudging Alicia from Malfoy’s body, “You can’t tell me that you weren’t the slightest bit shocked to see Malfoy over your bed being concerned!”

“Dammit I thought I was going to die and he came to gloat!” she grumbled, face scrunching up, “The least you can do is jump a cute girl’s body if you want to pay your “respects” to me.” (eyes narrow) “And speaking of that, why didn’t I feel that creature until it was practically on top of me trying to land a killing blow!”

Malfoy leans back, and looks around as if watching for prying eyes before speaking, “I felt into your mind, I know you know this answer already, but since you obviously want me to say it out loud… yes, Alicia, you’re right, there’s too many Dementors. As you have already guessed their essence is shrouding the school in a layer of darkness. Darkness so thick and so much that it’s impossible to detect any other dark entities in this “cloaking device” of shadow. That includes the would be assassin drone unit that tried to off you. One of many no doubt to come in the days left in the school year.”

“I felt that…” she noted, nodding her head, “I was hoping it was my nerves, but it seems that the Dementors are more of a menace than a help, their own presence blocking any sign of real darkness approaching until it’s too late. That’s not good. Then again it‘s not like endless hordes of evil are approaching the school so --” (blinks) “-- eh, just so I know, it WAS you who bailed me out, right? Knocked the creature into Hagrid?”

“…uh… no.” Jack/Malfoy answered truthfully. “I also noted a protective spell was cast near you, but that also wasn’t me. Somebody was doing it from the forest, or nearby somewhere… maybe from the school grounds where most of the students fled…”

“Hermione.” Alicia muttered, “Did she do that? But how…”

“Did you say something?” Jack asked with genuine curiosity.

Alicia shakes her head, blushing abit at the thought of Hermione… “Nothing, nothing. Forget it…” (silence comes between them for a minute) “…Hagrid’s in trouble, isn’t he.”

Jack/Malfoy smiled a rather awkward looking grin (since she was not at all prepared to see a genuine heartwarming grin on Malfoy‘s face) “Well, at least you can’t complain that your first day with magical creatures wasn’t interesting.” He remarked slyly, causing Alicia to pale at the remark. “Yeah. I always find near death experiences to be amongst the most interesting things I ever did on any given day. Joy. I can’t wait for it to happen again.”

“Well…” Jack motions towards the window, which was now dark, “…it’s night now and Hagrid is home. And since you already healed all the way we can do a little “swap” and you visit him while I play you for awhile. Deal?”

Alicia nods, feeling herself all healed up as she pulled the blankets away only to cover herself again. “DAMN!” she hissed, “Must they always dump me in bed naked!!”

“Maybe they get off on looking on that fine bod’ of you… and I can’t believe I just said that.” (Jack/Malfoy coughs in aggrivation before continuing) “They did have to do a lot to get you back on your feet again, so you can kinda understand about them having to disrobe you in order to save you… don’t worry, nothing of yours is missing or in the wrong hands.” (silence) “There. I shoved Malfoy into a sleep mode so I can tell you this. There’s a small amount of good in him, I can feel it, buried deep. Something, or someone, has been fostering this good in him yet I can’t seem to find out who. His or her identity he’s locked away tight…” (smirks) “…guess even a guy like Malfoy can have a little good in him.”

“Guess so.” Alicia mutters, thoughts racing. “Now are you going to get the hell out of here or are you hoping for another peek.”

Jack didn’t wait to be asked twice.

* * * * * *

As she reached the hut, she found that she was not alone.
Harry, Hermione and Ron looked as if they saw a ghost. She pointed at her wound and shrugged, “It’s nothing, forget it.” (her eyes falls onto the front door of the hut) “I’m going to take it that you’re here for the exact same reason I am, right?”

“Cheer Hagrid up?”

Alicia nods, “Then we’re on the same page, Ron. Shall we?”
When they reached the door, Ron knocked and a weary “C’min.” greeted them.
As both Hermione and Alicia reached for the door their hands met, touched briefly, and was quickly pulled away. Hermione, red faced and blushing abit, opened the door.
Hagrid, drunk out of his mind with his boarhound Fang nearby, regarded the group with a dazed stupefied look. Obviously he had found his limits in the drinking dept. that night.

“’Spect it’s a record,” he lamented, finally coming to his senses and recognizing them.
“Don’ reckon they’ve ever had a teacher who lasted on’y a day before.”

“You haven’t been fired yet, Hagrid!” Hermione gasped in indignation, the redness fading from her cheeks as she focused on Hagrid, “They can’t fire you! It wasn’t your fault!”

“Not yet, but they’re considerin’ it.” he remarked glumly, taking a slam of the strong substance in his tankard before him. “It’s only a matter o’ time, I s’pp’se, after what happened to yah’…”

“The Galerian Guilder caused more damage than Buckbeak!” Alicia complained, “And I don’t plan on causing a ruckus over this, either! Consider me silent on this point.”
Hagrid’s eyes focused dimly on her, the obvious question forming on his lips.
“I’m fine.” she assured him. “Madam Pomfrey patched me up just fine, and I’m young yet so I have quite abit of get-up and go in the healing dept. so I’m doing swell.” (‘just as long as nobody asks me to go into a gymnastics routine because I still feel rather sore in places.’ she added in her own thoughts) “Don’t worry about it. Shake it off, ‘kay?”

But it was as if Hagrid just wasn’t listening as he spoke, “School gov’nors have bin told, o’ course. They reckon I started too big. Shoulda left hippogriffs fer later… done flobberworms or summat… Jus’ thought it’d make a good firs’ lesson…. ‘S all my fault…”

“It’s all Malfoy’s fault, Hagrid!” Hermione said earnestly, “And his playacting earlier at Alicia’s bedside is an insult! What a jerk!”

‘Too bad that wasn’t Malfoy at my bedside.’ Alicia thought to herself, ‘At least not in the sense of his spirit…’ (sighs) “She’s right. You warned him they get awfully cranky when people disrespect them and he went off and disrespected them. I…” (stops) “…waitaminute…”

* * * * * *

Flashback…

Malfoy shrugged, shuffled his feet, and then said “A little bit of him is, but he’s in the backseat being silent after a threat of a lobotomy. Such a pain he is, but after the second time in one day he seems used to being the passenger, he even realizes he has you to thank for the fact he isn‘t dead right about now.”

* * * * * *

“…he wasn’t in control at that moment…” Alicia muttered, drawing curious gazes from everyone. “Nothing, nothing, don’t mind me…” she quickly replied, drifting back abit as everyone started talking again.

Alicia‘s mind buzzed furiously on the topic, ‘So he was under control of… something. Might explain his retarded arrogant act that almost got him bloodied up. But why…’

“I think you had enough to drink, Hagrid,” Hermione said sternly, pulling at Alicia’s sleeve to get her assistance in emptying the tankard. Outside she looked at Alicia with a firm expression as she asked “Are you really alright?”

“I’m a little sore here, and there, but I’ll live.” she answered truthfully. “I didn’t know you cared so much about my wellbeing.”

Hermione’s face blushes bright red once again as she nearly drops the tankard, her mouth ajar. “I care! I mean of course I care! I…” (stops) “…never mind.”

As she walks quickly back into the hut Alicia grins abit, “Guess maybe I have a chance after all with you.”

Hagrid immediately came outside as Hermione went in, and waddled over to a barrel of water where he dunked his head in to sober up. Alicia, watching him gurgle and splash his head in the water, walked up and stood nearby. As he surfaced she asked him “Think she likes me?”

Hagrid, now a little more clear headed but not by much, looked at her as if she proclaimed herself to be the re-incarnation of Cleopatra. “…never mind…” she muttered, pushing him back into the hut with a heavy sigh.

Inside he wiped his face of the excess water, muttering “Tha’s better,” shaking his head drenching them all. “Listen, it was good of yeh ter come an’ see me, I really --”
Silence. Suddenly, out of nowhere, Hagrid stopped dead in mid-sentence.
Alicia’s eyes glanced nervously around the room, waiting for someone to break the tension. The wait wasn’t long.

“WHAT D’YEH THINK YOU’RE DOIN’, EH?” he roared, so suddenly he made everyone jump, “YEH’RE NOT TO GO WANDERIN’ AROUND AFTER DARK, HARRY! AN’ YOU THREE! LETTIN’ HIM!”

Hagrid quickly strode to Harry, pulling him right away to the door. “C’mon! I’m takin’ yer all back up ter school, an’ don’ let me catch yeh walkin’ down ter see me after dark again. I’m not worth that!” The walk up was going to be rather quiet, Alicia gathered from the mood rather quickly. Turned out to be anything but.
As they exited the hut Alicia’s senses suddenly jump to attention.

“RUN!!” she cried out, spinning about to shield as a bio-bolt came down upon them, knocking her off her feet as it impacted. The sound of leaping, and claws scraping wood, echoed as she realized she was under attack once again… another Drone unit was on the offensive. The last one had to be a Drone unit, since she was now obviously under attack by another drone unit right now. This time, however, she was ready.

As Hagrid hustled Harry, Hermione and Ron to safety she pulled her wand out of her robes and tested it in her hand. The Galerian was fast, moving from tree to tree vying for a new shooting position. She hefts the wand into the air, and cries out the spell for light. As the wand bursts into life, lighting the area, the Galerian turned and fired another shot… it’s mistake. As the shot fired Alicia got it’s “location” and acted quickly, throwing herself to one side as she raised one arm up (hand out as if aiming a gun), shooting off one hard energy shot into the trees.

For the longest time she thought she missed. But seconds later she heard the solid thump, and the explosion of a detonating bio-core. She had blown it’s head off in one shot as it landed in another tree, the few seconds it needed to orient itself being enough time for the shot to carve it’s head apart as it tried to find the next tree to leap to.

However the Galerian wasn’t the only one who made a bad mistake. She had thrown herself without even thinking of how she’d land as she fell, because as she hit the ground a hard surge of pain ripped into her. She had dislocated her shoulder jumping aside, falling on the same side that was ripped into earlier that day by Buckbeak, and it was hurting like all hell as she landed on it awkwardly. She rolled on the ground, clutching her dislocated limb, deciding to wait for Hagrid to come back for her which wouldn’t be long in coming.

While she waited it gave her enough time to reconsider her “lifestyle”, and if it was worth having all this unwanted “attention” aimed at her. She didn’t have long to wait, though, as Hagrid came back quickly enough to set her right… after much yelling and cursing on her part to get him “motivated” into yanking her arm back into it’s socket. As Hagrid put her
arm back into it’s socket (at her loud and nearly threatening request) she figured it was this or she’d die of boredom.

She opted for her “status quo” life over death by boredom.

* * * * * *

Going back to class was a simple enough task once she convinced Madam Pomfrey that she wasn‘t going to break into tiny pieces if she left her care (or commit physical suicide upon herself by breakage through being alive). The arm was set nicely back into place, and as long as she didn’t stress it out she could expect it to mend in a short matter of time. Of course convincing Madam Pomfrey of her wellness was one thing, getting people to not treat her like an invalid was another thing altogether.

True, it seemingly took forever to get Madam Pomfrey to release her from the hospital ward, especially after her “escapades” the night before, but she got out eventually… with a sling for her now mending arm. That only made it all the worse for her as she’d soon find out. Indignant as all hell she walked into class looking rather bitter as she took her seat and started working on a potion she had “studied” in bed just for this class.

Still, the way everyone looked at her you would have thought she was a plague victim. It seemed that even her raven Chii gave her a dirty look as she worked. “I’m not going to turn you into a mole or anything, so stop glaring at me!” she grumbled, working hard on her ingredients with her good arm. Overall, at this point she was glad she was good with both hands since working one armed would have been a pain if she blew out her good arm.

The potion was simple enough, even for Alicia who hated potions. The potion in question was a simple Shrinking Solution. ‘If worse comes to worse I can always cheat by using my power to shrink Chii.’ Alicia thought to herself, her good hand working on the potion even as ripples of irritation from her injured arm continued to dance across her inflamed pain senses.

“Weasley, don’t just sit there looking like an inept excuse for a statue, cut up Spinnet’s roots for her before she mangles them into the magical equivelant of salad toppings.”

“I’m fine.” she spat out, “Mind your own roots.”

Ron went pale, “I can help if you…” (stops as he catches her near murderous look) “…or not.” Snape, glancing over at her work, sighed, “You’re mutilating your roots.”

“No I am not.” she hissed back. “Get off my back.”

“That won’t do. Change roots with Mr. Weas--”
Alicia’s knife slams blade down right into the table bringing the class to a halt for a second. Snape, now moving away, decided to harass someone else.
Retrieving her knife she went back to work, even more deadset on doing it herself.
Somehow it seemed as if he was being more helpful and nice to her that usual.
Most likely his way of getting on her bad side she thought to herself.

Malfoy, who seemed to have something to say, suddenly kept quiet… but his thoughts betrayed him. They were, after all, too loud. Even Alicia could hear them in this room full of noisy “thoughts”.

“No I am not going to get Hagrid fired.” Alicia grumbled, glancing back at Malfoy with murderous intent, “And if you try that I will make your life miserable.”

“It’s not his fault!”

Suddenly the all too familiar complaining voice of her elfin “keeper” snapped Alicia out of her stupor, and towards Snape‘s latest victim. May had once again found something to complain about, as she tried to shield Longbottom from Snape’s wrath. “It can be fixed.”

“It’s orange, miss, ORANGE!” said Snape in a testy voice, ladling some up to show everyone within eyesight of the concoction. “Orange. Tell me then, boy, does anything I try to teach you penetrate that thick skull of yours?”

His eyes narrowed, and nostrils flared, as he paced the two. “Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand my lessons, Longbottom?”

Alicia, from her spot, shook her head. He was arrogant, and rude, but he was also right.
She got the gist of the spell just from her book, and wasn’t even here for half of the verbal instructions, yet he had both to go with and still screwed it up. Clearly if May and the rest of Gryffindor wasn’t so hot on babying Neville they would realize that they were not helping him by always bailing him out of troubles he caused himself.

Neville was pink, trembling behind May as she growled at Snape. He was two seconds short of having a full on crying fit and that only irked May all the more.
“Please, sir,” Hermione said quickly, “please, I could help Neville put it…”

“NO YOU DON’T!”

The class fell silent again, but this time because of the source of the protest -- Alicia.

“Alicia!” Harry rasped, only to be glared at by her, “She’s NOT HELPING HIM if she has to constantly coddle him everytime he makes a screw up! He’s not going to learn if he’s bailed everytime he makes a mistake!”

The Slytherins started to snicker, but a harsh glance at them brought that to an end.
“Neville can be a great wizard if only he believes in himself, and his own abilities! Mark my words, there’s greatness in him if he’d only gets off his rear, stop whining and screwing up, and believes in his own ability to be great!”

The class did not protest, or mock anymore, and silence reigned in class.

It was a pity that Snape, finally, had to break the silence. He straightened himself up and said in a low tone drawling close to sarcasm “At the end of the lesson we’ll test Mr. Longbottom’s potion on his toad, and see what happens.”
And, with that, he leaves to walk the class, saying no more.
Unfortunately it seemed as if Alicia’s words went right over Neville’s head like a Concorde because he was already begging for help. With clenched teeth Alicia went back to work, trying her best to not yell at Longbottom anymore. Snape, passing nearby, whispered to her.

“It’s a shame that wisdom is wasted on the hopeless.”

“Shut up, Yoda, or I’ll cram Neville’s potion down your throat.” she snarled in response.

“Time out.”

Alicia looked up, now less angry and more confused at Snape‘s last words. “Say--”

“Time out.” he repeated without sparing a glance.

“Hey, Harry,” Seamus Finnigan started from nearby, “have you heard? Daily Prophet this morning - they reckon Sirius Black has been sight--”
Time stops for everyone except Alicia and Snape.
“You got my attention.” she grumbled, now realizing where he was heading with his request.

* * * * * *

The paper was not moving, as it should in “time out”, but the words were enough.

“Someone spotted Black less than 50 miles from here, but by the time it was called in he was gone… no doubt blazing a trail right to Hogsmeade.” Alicia noted. “To hold out until he can infiltrate the school.” Snape concluded, “Which shouldn’t be a problem for him since he never had a problem sneaking out of school.”
Alicia raised an eyebrow, “A revelation?”
“Of sorts.” Snape said off hand. “Infiltrating Hogwarts won’t be hard for a former student.”

Alicia - “And how would you know of…”

“There’s a good reason why everyone is concerned about Potter.” he remarked coldly, his dark eyes narrowing. “A very good reason.”

“And I suppose you’re not going to tell me.” Alicia countered.

For a long time the two stared at each other, until finally Snape walked back to where he was before Time Out and motioned for Alicia to go back. “Figures.”
It was time anyway. She couldn’t hold time back forever, only small intervals, and he knew she was nearing her limit and had to stop now.
Still, all in all, she wished Snape wasn’t so vague all the time. Must be from his “hatred” for her, she surmised. Still, it would have helped if she had more answers than questions.
“Why bother having a time out if you’re just going to riddle me with more questions.” she complained silently, returning time to normal.

* * * * * *

The class finally came to it’s conclusion. Even Double Potions must end eventually.
Snape quickly walked over to Neville, who was cowering behind May as he did.
“Everyone gather ‘round,” said Snape with energy in his voice, his black eyes almost glittering in his enthusiasm. “and watch what happens to Longbottom’s toad. If he has managed to produce a Shrinking Solution, it will shrink to a tadpole. If, as I don’t doubt, he has done it…”

“Gimme!” Alicia grumbled, grabbing the potion and downing it in one gulp in front of a now very shellshocked class. Nothing. Then she nodded her head and gave a thumbs up. “You have about 10 seconds to give me the antidote before my clothes falls off and I give everyone a little flash…” (Snape couldn’t pour the antidote fast enough) “…ok… so no little nudity for the boys today… pun intended.”

The Gryffindors burst into applause, but Alicia wasn’t smiling. She simply glared at Snape who finally relented to letting them have their moment. As they left class he quickly grabbed Alicia and moved her to the back of the class, “You must have a deathwish doing that! It could have…”

“…been poison.” she remarked, shaking free of his grasp, “I thought you would have been tickled pink to have the one with your dirtiest secret dead.”

“Don’t tempt me.” he shot back, eyes narrowing as he watched her leave. “If I didn’t know better I’d say you wanted to be dead.”

“Don’t tempt me.” she remarked as she left the room.

* * * * * *

Considering she was beginning to make progress with Hermione you would have thought that she had no desire to die now… and yet there was still that urge… and remembrances of… As she stepped out of the class she ran headlong into Hermione who was panting heavily. “Wh-what?” she gasped, looking at the distressed Hermione. “What’s with you? I thought…”

“What?” she said with some confusion, looking about, “Oh, sorry, I forgot something.” she rasped, hurrying up the stairs. Alicia, looking up to watch her run into Ron/Harry, only to lose all the books from her bag as it ripped, was confused. “But I didn’t see her come back to class…” As she reached the top of the stairs she grabbed Hermione by the robes, “Riddle me this, Miss Granger, why are you carrying enough books to knock a troll into a deep coma?”

“You know how many subject I’m taking,” Hermione rasped, breath nearly gone, “Couldn’t hold these for me, cou--”

Alicia pulls one of her tesseract gems, tapping it against the books to seal the whole bundle into it, passing it off to Hermione as she did. “Done. Now what--”
Hermione, however, couldn’t wait as she pushed forward heading towards the Great Hall.
“Wait!” Alicia cried out, “10 books and all we have today is Potions and Defense Against the Dark Arts?!? What--”

“Lunch! Can’t wait! Starving!” she cried, hurrying her pace.
Ron shrugged in sympathy. “Nice try, but I already went that route with her-- same results.”
Alicia stood there, dumbstruck, as she watched Hermione’s retreating head bob out of sight amidst the lunchhour crowd. “…guess lunch must be good today…”

* * * * * *

If the illogic of Hermione’s schedule baffled her, let alone how she was flustered at Alicia one moment and then ignoring her the next, the case of the missing Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher further befuddled Alicia’s already troubled mind.

Professor Lupin, it seems, was a no show. They were there, first class of the year, but their teacher was clearly not there. Not a good thing for a first class.
They all sat down, took out books and quills and parchments, and waited.
“First time I ever been to a class where the teacher decided to ditch on the students.” Alicia grumbled, her wand waving mindlessly in her good hand as she waited for something to happen. “If I knew he was going to ditch I would have done the same.“ she remarked glumly.

So, left with little choice, she sat there and waited… and waited… and talked to whoever was nearby… and waited… for sometime it seems she sat and waited until finally the doors swung open and in strode Professor Lupin.
He smiled vaguely, placing his old tatty briefcase on his desk as he regarded the class.
He didn’t seem too bad, despite the fact he was still as scruffy as ever, just abit more nourished from being fed three square meals.
“Good afternoon,” he said, glancing about the class, “Would you please put all your books back in your bags. Today’s will be a practical lesson. You will need only your wands.”

Curious glances were exchanged as books went bye-bye, and wands here held tightly by now anxious students.

“Right then,” Lupin proudly exclaimed, once everyone was ready, “If you’d follow me.”
Curious and puzzled by all this, the class got to it’s feet and followed Lupin out of the class. He lead them along the now deserted corridor and around a corner, where the first thing they saw was a most curious sight. Peeves the Poltergeist was up to his old tricks.

But that didn’t concern Alicia. She saw something else that was far more interesting.
As the class became entranced by the exchange between Lupin and Peeves, Alicia moved back to a dark corner where she saw a familiar “face”.
There, hiding in the shadows, was a very uptight Moaning Myrtle.
That in itself was odd since she never left the bathroom she haunted.
Alicia tried to grab Myrtle as she shrunk back into the darkness, “What’s wrong?”
Myrtle first vanished without stopping, only to reappear after a few seconds and say in a direct manner “It’s too dark. Everything is too dark. The mood. The “light”. Everything.” she glared at Alicia, “And it’s your fault bringing them here. The hooded things that reek of living death. The loud clammoring lizard monsters that walk like ape people. The disorderly one. I liked it better when it was quiet, and brighter.”
And, with that, she vanished.

Thankfully Lupin got the class moving again before anyone noticed she was missing.
Whatever she missed seemed to have changed the mood with the class.
They now looked on at Lupin with a greater sense of respect, yet she didn’t know why.
Maybe the first lesson will shed light on that, Alicia thought, as they entered a new room.

This was the staffroom, where teachers hung out between classes. It was a long paneled room full of old, rather mismatched chairs. The room was empty except for one teacher, which was the one Alicia actually wanted to see : Snape. He was sitting in a low armchair, and looked around as the class filled in. Before he could speak Alicia “mind-jammed” him and simply said “Stay.” But as Lupin came in, Snape stood up and said “Leave it open, Lupin. I’d rather not witness this.”

He got to his feet and strode past the class, his eyes locked on Alicia as he did.
‘You saw Myrtle, haven’t you.’ he thought in his mind. ‘You already know what she means without having to ask me about it.’

‘I know who the hooded one bearing living death is, and I know about the lizard monsters, but who is the “disorderly one”.’ Alicia demanded in her thoughts.

At the doorway he turned on his heel and said, “Possibly no one’s warned you, Lupin, but this class contains Neville Longbottom. I would advise you not to entrust him with anything difficult. Not unless Miss Granger is hissing instructions in his ear, being disorderly in the process.”

Alicia’s jaw nearly dropped open at the implication, but Snape ignored her as he left.

Professor Lupin, however, raised his eyebrows at the remark.
“I was hoping that Neville would assist me with the first stage of the operation, and I am sure he will perform it most admirably.”
Neville paled, but not as much as Alicia who did everything she could to keep from screaming. Snape shrugged, “As you wish, Lupin, after all it’s your TIME.” he said with a flourish in the last word as he left.

Time? What does time have to do with anything? Is he just pulling her chain to see if she’d jump? No, no, Snape was really being on the level about the “disorderly one” so… what the hell does that mean about Hermione?

“Now, then,” Professor Lupin beckoned, at the same time a pulling in her mind told her that the Dementors were also beckoning. Great, just great, another curtain call.
They had a report so she allowed them to drift her mentally to their “location” for them to speak to her, as she stood in “class” watching and “listening”.
The Dementors, rounded in a circle about her, reported.

Their suspicions were dead on right, on more than one count.
Black was indeed very close now, the Dementors could feel it.
However that is all they could do. They couldn’t localize the “feeling”, nor could they find the “source” of the feeling. Black was near, just they didn’t know how near.

And the Dementors had at last realized that they had let something else slip in. That thing, of course, being the Assassin Guilder and his drone units… fat lot of good that revelation did however. As far as the Dementors were concerned only Black meant anything to them. It seemed that Black was the one and only fixation on their “mind”, so to speak.

No amount of “derailment” tactics from Alicia could get them to focus resources to hunt her “assassin”, since they were only interested in Black. Just as well, she surmised, since it was her fight in the first place. Best to be left to her.

As she focused back on class she realized everyone had moved to near the end of the room, near an old wardrobe filled with spare robes. However, as the class neared, something inside the wardrobe hissed and shook the huge piece of furniture as if to frighten them.

“Nothing to worry about,” Professor Lupin announced quite casually, as he motioned for those who jumped back to step forward again, “There’s a boggart in there.”

Alicia, eyebrow raised in her usual skeptical manner, could only stare at the now fidgety cabinet as it clacked and rattled in disbelief. A “boggart”, eh? What’s that?
Neville seemed to cling onto May just that much tighter as he stared, while Finnigan gave the whole scene a rather apprehensive look. Lupin continued. “Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces. Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks -- I’ve even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock.”

“Try the living the next time you look for new friends.” Alicia quipped, staring at the rattling piece of cabinetry with abit of disdain. “At least dead things that are friendlier.”

Lupin shrugged, “And it just arrived yesterday to be our “friend” too.”

The class chuckled at his counter-quip, bringing a bit of a frown to Alicia’s lips as he went on about the Boggart. “It moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice. So, first question we must ask ourselves is this - What is a boggart?”

Hermione, like clockwork, had her hand up quickly.

“It’s a shape-shifter,” she said in a matter of fact tone, “It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.”

Lupin, smiling from ear to ear, slaps a hand down on his thigh and quickly points right at Hermione in a triumphant manner, “EXCELLENT! Couldn’t have put it better myself!” Lupin praised, bringing a bright glow to Hermione’s cheeks.
This clearly didn’t impress Alicia at all, who sulked in her spot and thought nasty things about the new teacher. ‘Bet he likes ‘em young.’ she thought spitefully, ‘Kiss up.’

“So the boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. It does not yet know what will frighten the person on the opposite side of the door. Nobody knows what a boggart looks like when it is alone, but when I let it out…’

* * * * * *

The sky was eternal night, even in the middle of the day.
The city was destroyed. Hulking wrecks of buildings reached into the dead sky above as she walked along the huge open courtyard towards her destination.
She was one of a dozen Ravens performing recovery duties for the living in this ruined city, but finding the living wasn’t easy since the living was “frozen” in cryotubes for “later useage”. As she walked towards the door, her hand already motioning to pull the door open via the use of her power, she heard a faint shriek from within. Before she could stop herself she had begun to pull the door open only to release a half crazed Dark Lunaris creature, the half frost bitten monster falling to it’s side on the cold dead earth shrieking madly as it flailed about in madness.

The corridor beyond was cold, as cold as the world about her and the sight before her.
Cold… and dead.

* * * * * *

“Er -- because there are so many of us, it won’t know what shape it should be?”
As she snapped out of it she realized Harry, not Hermione, was talking.
“Precisely.” Lupin said in praise, as Hermione dropped her hand looking a tad disappointed. “It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart. It becomes confused when confronted by two different fears. Which should it become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug. I once saw--”

‘Oh for goddess’ sake, not another “I once saw” story.’ Alicia sighed, eyes straying about as she waited for the real lesson to begin. ‘Cut to the chase and tell me how to beat it.’
As if reading her mind, Lupin did exactly that.

“The charm that repels a boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a boggart is a simple emotion -- laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find most amusing.”

“And that’s it?”

“That’s it, Miss Spinnet.” Lupin answered, “We will practice the charm without wands first, to get the wrist motions down. Now, repeat after me please -- riddikulus!”

“Riddikulus!” the class pronounced together, wrists in motion to mimic the spell motions.

‘That’s what this class is -- “riddikulus”.’ Alicia thought to herself.

“Good, very very good.” Lupin praised. “But that was the easy part, I’m afraid. You see, the word alone is not enough. And that, Neville, is where you come into the lesson.”

Neville looked as if he was about to have a seizure as Lupin led him forward towards the closet, the shaking increasing as he drew closer and closer.
May wasn’t far off from having her own seizure at Lupin’s boldness with Neville, fidgeting as she watched as if she was worried Neville was seconds away from losing a limb or three.

With a dissatisfied sigh she pulled a few candy bars from a hidden tesseract pouch, and began eating mindlessly as she watched with little interest.
“Not going anywhere for awhile? Hell yeah…” she muttered.
To Be Continued