Date: Tue, 6 Jan 2004 22:17:15 +0000
From: Meta4 <meta4@meta4.org>
Subject: Harry Potter and the Rising of the Dark, chapter 3

  HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
  by Meta4. Chapter 03.

  The Eleven (Elven?) Commandments
  ================================

  1.  Thou shalt bow to J.K. Rowling, creator of the Potterverse!
  2.  Thou shalt acknowledge all characters created by Her.
  3.  Thou shalt acknowledge the trademarks of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.
  4.  Thou shalt not read the story herein if Slash offendeth you.
  5.  Thou shalt not read this story if thou art not old enough so to do.
  6.  Thou shalt not pass the work herein as thine own.
  7.  Thou shalt not gain profit from distributing the work herein.
  8.  Respect thy mother and thy father - only read this work when they are out.
  9.  Thou shalt acknowledge My copyright
  10. Thou shalt contact Me if thou likest or thou detesteth this work.
  11. Thou shalt never piss off an Elf...

  HARRY POTTER AND THE RISING OF THE DARK
  by Meta4 <meta4@meta4.org>


  CHAPTER THREE:: A learning experience.

  The best thing I can think of to which I can compare Colin Creevy is a Jack
Russell Terrier - continually bouncing around and far too eager for his own
good. Ordinarily, I could not have tolerated such a person for more than a few
minutes at a time but this situation was anything other than ordinary.

  To his credit, though, he was being perfectly civil towards me even after I
had nearly killed him. Ugh - that thought still made me feel sick.

  Colin continued to astound and amaze me with the sheer volume of verbage that
spouted in an endless stream from his mouth. Interspersed with the plentiful
digressions and anecdotes, there were actually a few useful snippets of
information I managed to pick up: He was going to give me a guided tour of the
school, starting with breakfast in the Great Hall, and then round the castle and
its grounds. As we descended the main staircase back to the ground floor,
animated chatter from Hogwarts' students could be heard through a huge pair of
doors.

  Once again, I had to consciously close my mouth as I saw the ceiling of the
Great Hall. The huge stone pillars that supported its not inconsiderable weight
seemed to melt into nothing as they got higher, being replaced instead with
nothing but sky. Colin noticed my awe.

  "It's enchanted to mimic the sky outside," he explained.

  "What happens when it rains?"

  "It rains in here, too, but you don't get wet."

  "Ahh..." Perfectly logical for an enchanted ceiling, I suppose.

  In the Great Hall were four long tables with a bench along either side. I
noticed that the occupants of each table sported matching uniforms. A quick
glance at Colin's red and gold edging to his v-neck jumper confirmed our
destination. As we walked up between two of the tables, I suddenly became aware
of people looking at me curiously and them whispering between themselves.
Considering I was the only one wearing black jeans and a long-sleeved black
t-shirt with "Lucky FCUK" stamped across it, I guess I got off fairly lightly.

  Colin continued walking almost up to the end of the table and sat down next to
two identical twins that shared the same firey-red hair as Ron, who sat opposite
them. Either side of Ron sat a girl with frizzy brown hair and another lad with
jet black, unruly hair and glasses. As he glanced at me I couldn't help but do a
double take - I wasn't sure what, but something about the way he looked at me
caused my gaze to linger a little longer than I think either of us would have
liked. They had all been talking enthusiastically as we approached but soon
clammed up as Colin and I sat down.

  "Hi," chirped Colin. "This is Liam Blackdon - I'm showing him around the
school before he decides if he wants to stay here."

  There was a rather uneasy silence combined with a couple of scowls.

  "Look, uh, Ron isn't it? I'm sorry I got you with the baseball bat, but next
time you might want to try ringing the doorbell," I smiled. "Truce?" I offered,
holding out my hand.

  Ron considered for a moment before smiling his skewed smile back at me and
shaking on it. Immediately the tension seemed to drop, which implied from past
experience that this lot were fairly close friends.

  "What would you like to eat, Liam?" gushed Colin.

  I cast an eye around at what everyone else was eating - full English breakfast
- and decided that was a good idea. No sooner than the words had escaped my
lips, a full spread of bacon, eggs, sausage, tomatoes, beans and toast appeared
in front of me. Now, you'd have thought by now that I'd at least have started to
get used to this magic thing, but no, I was still shocked much to the amusement
of the others.

  "I suppose we'd better introduce ourselves,"  said the bushy-haired girl in a
rather bossy voice. "I'm Hermione Granger, this I'm sure you already know is Ron
Weasley, the two bookends there are Fred and George Weasley, Ron's brothers, and
this is Harry Potter."

  Harry smiled and nodded cordially at me. I couldn't help but smile back.

  "So what were you doing to knock some sense into Colin then?" asked one of the
Weasley twins.

  "Joyriding."

  Everyone's face looked puzzled except for Hermione and Harry.

  "What's joyriding?" asked Ron between mouthfulls of sausage.

  "Well, it's where you... Well, you get a car and thrash it round for a bit."

  "What, you have a car? You're not old enough to drive are you?" asked the
other Weasley twin.

  "Well, no and no - I'm not old enough to drive and it wasn't my car."

  "So who's car was it?"

  "Dunno."

  "So you stole it?" Ron asked incredulously.

  "Well, yeah - that's kinda the idea."

  The twins eyes lit up.

  "What about the police?" they asked in unison.

  "They're not a problem unless they catch you. But I s'pose that's half the
fun."

  The twins looked as if they were about to undertake some kind of hero worship.
Colin looked torn between shock and admiration, Ron just looked plain shocked,
Hermione was acting as if someone had just shoved a dog turd under her nose and
Harry - well, he seemed lost in thought.

  "So you were driving a stolen car underage and uninsured?" snorted Hermione in
a rather derisory tone.

  "Mmmhmm," I replied, scooping a fork-full of beans into my mouth.

  "Well I just think that's plain irresponsible. You could've killed Colin!"

  "Well he was the one flying across the road at car height! If you're gonna fly
along roads, at least go in the same direction as the traffic!"

  "That's a point, Creevy, what were you doing there in the middle of the
night?" asked Ron. All eyes turned to Colin who took a very large gulp of the
pumpkin juice he was drinking.

  "I might ask you the same thing!" snapped Colin in response.

  Ron opened his mouth as if to lay into Colin, but on seeing Hermione's
questioning gaze, stopped to think about what he was about to say.

  "Well?" asked Hermione.

  "I.. uh..."

  "Go on," she urged in a very disapproving tone of voice.

  "It was a dare," he admitted.

  "A dare? Who dared you to go and spy on Colin?"

  "We'd, uh, better be going," said Fred as he and George tried to gently ease
out from the table with the minimum amount of fuss.

  "It was you two, wasn't it?" she asked.

  "Gottagobye!" grinned George, dragging his brother out of the Great Hall at a
rapid rate of knots.

  "Honestly, Ron, I can't believe you'd do something like that! You know Fred
and George are just doing it for their own entertainment..."

  Ron nodded resignedly. Colin, who thought he'd escaped the inquisition, nearly
jumped when Hermione rounded on him. "So what's your excuse for being out of
school and so far away in the middle of the night?"

  "I was working for the Daily Prophet," he replied rather unenthusiastically.

  "Oh yes? Doing what, exactly?"

  "I'm not sure I'm supposed to..."

  "Colin..."

  "Mr. Figg and I were... Well, he said there were some Dark goings-on in the
area and he wanted photographic evidence."

  "So he took YOU?" giggled Ron.

  Colin nodded weakly. "He said if anything went wrong not to tell anyone."

  "And presumably something did go wrong," said Harry, speaking for the first
time.

  "We stumbled across a gathering of Death Eaters," stuttered Colin. "They
spotted us and Mr Figg just ran off. I did the same but I was chased. I managed
to get back to my broom but they were still chasing me and I just tried to fly
as fast as I could and must've flown out into the road and that's about all I
remember."

  "So then you were hit by Liam?"

  "I must've been. The next thing I remember is the Death Eater that was chasing
me casting the Killing Curse and Liam being thrown on top of me. The Death Eater
then vanished back into the woods and Liam took me to his house."

  "And you didn't think it might've been a good idea to tell someone this,
Colin?" asked Ron looking exasperated.

  "Well, I promised Mr Figg that..."

  "Colin - you were nearly killed! Just thank your lucky stars that Liam was
there," said Harry. "I think you ought to go and tell Dumbledore."

  "But Mr. Figg'll be..."

  A stern look from Hermione, Ron and Harry cut him short. He took another gulp
of his pumpkin juice and stood up from the table.

  "Liam, will you be OK if..."

  "He'll be fine, Colin." Hermione assured him.

  He sighed, resigned himself to seeing Dumbledore and trudged off out of the
Great Hall.

  "Well, I guess you'd better tag along with us," smiled Harry.

  "What have we got first period?" asked Ron.

  "Umm, I think it was supposed to be Defense Against the Dark Arts, but we're
getting our extra dueling lesson instead. I think it's Snape taking it again."

  Everyone groaned.


  *****

  "Silence!" yelled Snape as he stormed into the room, slamming the door behind
him. "As I mentioned last time I am expecting you all to have learned and
practised at least one method of disarming and incapacitating your opponent.
Let's choose a pair totally at random... Granger - you're facing Malfoy."

  Hermione sighed and climbed onto one end of the dueling platform whilst a
sneering, cocky little shit climbed onto the other. I knew he was a sneering,
cocky little shit as he appeared to be quite alarmingly similar to myself.

  "Who's that?" I whispered to Harry who was stood right next to me.

  "Draco Malfoy - Snape's golden boy."

  "Ahh,"

  "He's an insufferable little bastard - the only problem is he's quite good."

  "Ready? Salute!" yelled Snape.

  Both Hermione and Malfoy whipped their wands in front of their faces, and then
back down to their sides again. Malfoy quite obviously whispered something to
Hermione that caused her face to flush red. Malfoy simply sniggered at the
reaction.

  "Turn and pace," barked Snape. "One... Two... Thr..

  Before the syllable had been uttered, Malfoy yelled something Latin-sounding
and a bright blue streak shot from the end of his wand down the length of the
dueling platform and hit Hermione square in the chest. I gasped as she
pirouetted up in an arc, wand being thrown from her hand, before landing with a
heavy thump, groaning.

  Ron dashed to Hermione's aid whilst Harry just shook his head.

  "Well done, Mr. Malfoy. Five points to Slytherin."

  "Does this always happen?"

  "Generally, yes," sighed Harry. "Ever since things got a bit out of hand
between Malfoy and myself we're not usually paired."

  "Ahh, Mr. Blackdon," sneered Snape as he glared down from the platform. "As
you seem to already know a vast amount about dueling, perhaps you'd like to face
Mr. Malfoy."

  "I'm sorry, what?"

  "Well, you're obviously so acquainted with our practises that you and Mr.
Potter" - he really spat out the 'P' - "don't need to pay attention. Now by all
means, please show us all how it's done."

  I considered it for a moment, and then thought 'What the hell'.

  Snape was obviously shocked when I took him up on his offer, but shock quickly
gave way to his usual, sadistic smile.

  "Mr. Potter, perhaps you'd be so good as to lend your wand to Mr Blackdon,"

  Harry shrugged and handed his wand to me.

  "C'mon, boy, we don't have all day," snapped Snape.

  I leisurely walked to the end of the platform and climbed on. Malfoy was stood
in the middle of the platform waiting for me.

  "Salute!" yelled Snape. I did as Hermione had done and held Harry's wand in
front of my face.

  "I hope you like pain," sneered Malfoy. I just made a kissy-kissy face back at
him. He faltered for a moment. I'd managed to throw him momentarily, and
mentally chalked one up on my scoreboard.

  "Turn and pace!" shouted Snape once again.

  I took a leisurely walk to my end of the platform and before I even had the
chance to turn round I heard Malfoy yell the same incantation he'd used against
Hermione, followed a split-second later by a slight tingling sensation in my
lower back. I stopped, sighed and handed the wand back to Harry who was looking
at me in disbelief.

  I turned round once more to find Malfoy inspecting his wand as if it was
defective before he cast the spell a second time, this time causing a slight
tingle in my stomach. I then began to walk down the platform towards Malfoy.

  He looked at me in increasing amounts of horror as he cast spell after spell,
each one producing a slightly different tingle, itch, pinch or prickle as they
hit, but none impeding my progress towards him in any way. When I was within a
couple of feet of him, I snatched his wand out of his hand and threw it over my
shoulder. I then balled up my fist, leant back slightly and then thrust it
forward towards his face. One right-hook later and Mr. Malfoy was sat on the
ground with a bloody nose and a slightly dazed look.

  Then the cheer went up.

  "SILENCE!" boomed Snape. "Mr Blackdon," he continued to yell. "That is not how
a dual is performed!" he seethed.

  "Well, I fulfilled both requirements - he's disarmed and, for the moment at
least, fairly well incapacitated."

  "Fifty points from..."

  "I'm not a student here."

  Snape looked as if he was about to burst a blood vessel. I just smiled back at
him benignly. Damn this was fun.

  "CLASS DISMISSED" he roared and stormed towards the door. "And someone get
Malfoy to the hospital wing."

  "How did you do that?" asked Harry as he offered me his hand to aid me from
the platform.

  "The whole 'get shot by magic and keep on going' thing? I dunno. Call me the
Energizer Bunny," I smiled, taking his hand and jumping down by him.

  There was something about this raven-haired, bespectacled lad that I found
intriguing, yet I couldn't quite put my finger on what exactly endeared him to
me. Under the scruffy hair and the glasses lay a face that was very obviously
predisposed to smiling. Somehow, though, he gave me the impression the
opportunities when he allowed that to happen were few and far between.

  Thankfully this appeared to be one of the few occasions when he did let a
smile escape to his features. His face literally lit up as he grinned back at
me.

  "You know, it's really good to see someone give Malfoy such a shock. I don't
think I've ever seen him so scared!"

  "Anyone who can treat a girl like that deserves what's coming to 'em."

  The one thing I had learned from my wonderful, doting parents (!) was that a
bloke fighting a woman where the woman was very obviously at a physical
disadvantage just shouldn't happen. I'd heard mum crying herself to sleep once
to often to want that to happen to anyone. I frowned at myself - I was guessing
it was the very sudden change in my conception of reality, but whatever it was,
I was feeling a whole lot more. Hell, one could almost argue I cared. Strange
feeling, that.

  Harry smiled. "I wouldn't let Hermione hear you say that. She's quite...
Independent."

  "I guessed as much. So how long have you been here?"

  "Since I was eleven. I got a letter saying I'd been accepted but my Aunt and
Uncle weren't too happy about the idea."

  "Your aunt and uncle? What did your parents say?"

  "Not a lot - they were killed when I was a baby."

  "Oh... Oh I'm sorry..."

  "Don't be... It's actually quite a change to meet someone who doesn't know the
story."

  "Story?"

  Harry stowed his wand inside the folds of his cloak and picked up his book
bag. "The story about how Lord Voldemort murdered my parents and tried to kill
me too, but the curse bounced off me and killed - well, severely injured - him
instead. The only thing that it left me with is this scar."

  He brushed his mop of hair away to reveal a lightning-shaped scar above his
right eye.

  "You know, if you hadn't have told me, I'd have thought you head-butted an
electrical outlet."

  "You know, no-one's ever said that to me before," he grinned, and then started
to laugh.

  "What?"

  "It's actually quite funny."

  "Well, yeah, but not that funny..."

  "No, really - most people shy away from the subject and change topics."

  "Never been one to do that, mate," I grinned.

  "Yeah, I kinda noticed... Anyway, we're two of a kind I s'pose - the only two
people in history to have had the killing curse used against us and live to tell
the tale."

  "No shit?"

  "No shit."

  "Oh. Ace!"

  "I guess so. Never really looked at it that way before. It is quite cool,
isn't it?"

  "Think we're bullet-proof too?"

  "I'm not sure - probably best not to try and find out either, eh?" he grinned.

  "I think you're right."

  "Hey, hold on you two," yelled Ron. We turned to see Ron with a slightly worse
for wear Hermione draped around his neck. She didn't look too bad, but had the
'I'm really hurting but I'm damned if I'm gonna show it' smile on her face.

  I dashed back and got her, rather hesitantly, to drape her free arm around my
neck too. As both Ron and I were a good head taller than Hermione, we both
looked at each other and with a "One, two, three, lift!" she was dangling quite
comfortably between us. We took as direct a route to the Hospital Wing as the
moving staircases (mouth closed, Liam) would allow where a rather stern looking
woman known as Madam Pomfrey fussed and clucked around us. As she tended to
Hermione's ankle (which had been very badly sprained as she landed awkwardly on
it) and applied some kind of herbal teabag-like thing she let us know in no
uncertain terms as to how she disapproved of such violent activities.

  "Quidditch is bad enough," she ranted, "but Dueling - honestly, they'll be
having fist fights next!"

  At that moment, the doors to the hospital wing burst open again, this time
with two lads resembling gorillas holding Malfoy between them.

  "Goodness gracious, Mr. Malfoy, what have you been doing?"

  Malfoy had already spotted me and shot me a glare. "He punched me," he
whinged. Now it was Madam Pomfrey's turn to shoot me a dirty look.
Unfortunately, she chose the bed adjacent to Hermione's in which to place
Malfoy. The two gorillas obediently sat by his bedside.

  "Now just try and relax, Mr. Malfoy, and keep your head back. I need some
supplies from Professor Snape so I'll be a few moments."

  As soon as Pomfrey had turned her back, Malfoy pulled himself upright. "You
just wait Blackdon," he said as he pinched his nose to stem the blood flow.
"You'll get it, just like Saint Potter, the weasel and your filthy little
mudblood there."

  I nonchalantly placed one foot on the side of Hermione's bed and tilted my
chair back, trapping Malfoy's fingers between it and the steel bed frame. He
screamed out, but Pomfrey appeared to have left the wing momentarily.

  "Oh, I'm so sorry, Malfoy," I gushed, gradually increasing the pressure with
my leg until I was pushing Hermione's bed with a scrawping sound across the
tiled floor. "It appears that I have quite accidentally trapped your fingers
between my chair and your bed. My word, that MUST be painful," I oozed between
Malfoy's, screeches and sobs. "May I suggest that it would not be wise for any
of our paths to cross in the future, unless you want to end up with an arm to
match that rather tastefully buckled nose of yours... Don't you agree?"

  Ron, Harry and Hermione all nodded.

  Malfoy nodded between sobs.

  "Good. Oh my word, look at that: Your fingers're still trapped! I do
apologise," I grinned and leant forward. His hand recoiled immediately and he
cradled it to his chest. "Oh, and I wouldn't go mentioning this to poor Madam
Pomfrey - she's got enough on her plate without having to deal with fractured
limbs."

  "Are... you.. trying... to... threaten me?" blustered Malfoy between jagged
breaths, trying to sound unintimidated.

  "Heavens no," I smiled. "I _AM_ threatening you."

  "Right, Miss Granger, off you go - that compress should've done it's work by
now," announced Madam Pomfrey as she strode back into the room. Hermione spun
her feet over the edge of the bed and tentatively let her weight back on to her
injured ankle to find all of the pain and swelling had gone. She gave her thanks
and all four of us headed for the exit.

  "That was pretty rotten what you did to Malfoy," Hermione said to me as we
walked back towards the main school. "But thank you."

  "It was my pleasure, fair lady," I grinned, turning and bowing an extremely
ornate bow as we walked which caused her to blush quite impressively. I just
smiled even wider and half-skipped round until I was next to Harry once more.

  "So where are we heading now?"

  "Well, there's a free period next followed by Transfiguration."

  "Huh?"

  "Turning one thing into something else," explained Hermione, still not quite
believing how quickly she'd had her ankle repaired.

  "What, like frogs into beautiful princesses?"

  "You've been reading far too many fairy stories, but yeah, same discipline
although that's a lot more advanced than the level we're at."

  I wasn't expecting anything like an affirmative to that quip, but once again I
had to remind myself I was in a different world now.

  "Cool. Doubt I'd be able to do anything like you lot can though."

  "Well, maybe not immediately," encouraged Hermione, "but you may as well try.
If spells have no effect on you, goodness knows what else you're capable of!"

  "So has Dumbledore mentioned in passing why he's interested in you?" queried
Ron. "I mean he doesn't just allow anyone into Hogwarts."

  "Well, Dumbledore seems to think I'm an Elf, and..."

  "You're Elven?" asked Hermione, eyes widening.

  "No, I'm fifteen," I grinned. Ron and Harry barely suppressed snorts of
laughter.

  "No - EL-VEN," said Hermione, sounding rather exasperated, "as in 'descended
from Elves',"

  "Oh. Yeah, so he reckons."

  "Liam, I hate to be the one to break this to you, but Elves are... Dobby's an
elf and he's... Well, he's only two-and-a-half feet tall for starters! You've
got to be nearly six foot! I don't know a lot about Elves really as it as it
doesn't come until the seventh year History of Magic course... C'mon," she
smiled, and jogged off towards the Library.


  = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

  Well, that's all for the moment. Let us know what you think (good or bad) at
meta4@meta4.org, or visit our web site at http://www.meta4.org.