The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later

---------------The Fat Muggle, Ten Years Later. chapter twelve, "Joining you"---------------------------

Where is he?!? How could he have escaped?!?

The door!

That must be it, he was far too weak to apparate and my anti-apparation spells would have prevented him to do so anyway.

I must find him! I'll track him in the snow, yes!

I'll have him in less than an hour!

"What? You've solved the mystery of the Thought-Uniter root in less than two days?" Grindle asked, shocked at Neville's accomplishment, that even the top Herbologists had failed with for years.

"Yes! It's easy, but I'll go through the details when everyone is here! Where is Ron and Hermione?" Neville said, panting for air.

"They're up in the control booth," Dudley said and pointed to the window high on the wall.

"Oh!" Neville said, suspecting why they were the only ones up there.

"Maybe we should let them take their time," Neville said.

Dudley and Grindle frowned.

"Why?" Dudley asked and Neville hadn't even had time to answer before Grindle shouted for Hermione and Ron to come down.

They did, but they didn't look too happy.

"Neville solved it!" Dudley told them.

"You did? Incredible!" Ron said and patted his back.

"Let's get to my office before we continue," Hermione said.

Once in Hermione's office, Neville began explaining.

"The Thought-Uniter root is too strong to be taken as a pure potion. The effects it has on the human mind, telepathic growth and expansion, is too concentrated and makes the mind of the taker expand and grab hold of the nearest receptable mind, usually someone who has also taken the root," Neville said.

"The Death Eaters knew this, and therefore they mixed it with different potions and other plants to, hopefully, milden the effect so they could be in greater control of their newly born abilities," he continued and walked through the room, sitting down in the open window and conjuring a drink; a White Russian, his and Dudley's favourite.

Dudley ached with joy when he saw his loved one once again do something so familiar, that he thought he'd never see again.

"But they had no idea what kind of plants or potions that would get the desired effect, so they just blindly tried anything they could get a hold of and most of the times those combinations were disastrous. But I found the two components that, in theory, would not only give you control over the telepathy, but it can also keep the power inside your own head and you wouldn't have to link up with another telepath unless you wanted to," Neville said and smiled, drinking his drink all in one gulp.

"So, what are the components?" Hermione asked curiously.

"Well, the first component is a pretty difficult potion to prepare, called Mercuriousity Potion, and I sure can't prepare it," Neville said and laughed, remembering his poor skills in Potions back in school.

"I could ask Severus if he could fix it for us," Hermione said and Ron nodded.

Neville looked abhored.

"Your'e on a first name basis with Snape?!? How dreadful!" he exclaimed.

"Well, as much as we all believed it back in school, he didn't ruin our lives and he's turned much softer since he married Minerva," Hermione said and smiled.

"He's married McGonagall?!?" Neville said and slapped his forehead in disbelief.

"Enough about that. Let's get on with the second component," Ron said.

"Ah, yes!" Neville said and conjured a second drink.

"The second component I almost laughed myself to death over as it is so simple I thought my mind was fooling me! The second component is plain peanut butter!!" Everyone's jaws dropped.

"I know! But it seems that normal fat helps isolate the roots effects on the brain and peanut butter has just the right amount of fat," Neville said.

"But what about that other potion? What good does it do?" Grindle asked.

"It contains ammonia! And ammonia has a druglike effect on the brain, causing the owner of the brain to laugh and relax most parts of the brain so you don't really notice the growing of your telepathy. If you did, you might panic and automatically resist the sensation of a sixth sense growing very fast, which could cause you to go mad and grab other people's minds," Neville explained.

They all thought about this for a while.

"Ok, I'll owl Severus to come directly here to the Ministry and start working on the Mercuriousity Potion and in the meantime, I want all of you to use Dudley's Smartwatch to learn guarding spells so Malfoy doesn't get you all to easy and learn some new attack spells," Hermione said and pulled out a piece of parchement, ready to write to Snape.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Get out of here!" she said and they all left her office and returned to the training room.

Harry's paws felt numb from the cold and he was completely lost in the raging blizzard.

Where the hell am I? he thought.

We can't still be in Sweden, there are no blizzards in this part of the country this early in the year.

Where has Draco taken me?

Harry kept on walking throught the snow, feeling utterly drained of energy, praying someone would find him and rescue him.

He laughed in his mind; he never thought he'd be asking to be saved!

Harry caught a scent of something up ahead!

Human!

Harry looked up and saw a tall, dark figure only a few feet away from him.

It came closer to him and Harry stopped walking.

"It seems you've got yourself in quite some trouble, Harry!" the figure shouted out to him.

Harry recognised the voice!

What the hell was he doing out here?

Harry suddenlt felt warm and saw that a reddish see-through shield had enclosed him and his saviour.

"Come now. Let's get you something to eat, Harry," the man said and the two wizards started walking.

Then Harry thought he heard somenone screaming somewhere behind him.

"Draco is out here, too!" Harry said, having not had the energy to maintain his wolverine shape any longer.

"What? I don't think so. He's in Azkaban, remember?" the man said, obviously not having read a copy of the Daily Prophet in a long time.

Behind them Draco had lost Harry's trail and was furious.

"Where are you?!?! Come back here!!!" he screamed at the top of his lungs, but to no good.

Draco began thinking in the middle of the icey wind.

"You don't know I've lost him. So I can still get two of You on Wednesday!"

Draco turned and ran through the snow back to where he'd held Harry captive.

And waited for Wednesday.

Let Potter freeze to death! Who cares?

An hour later, Harry woke up next to a raging fireplace with a warm blanket wrapped around his naked body.

He looked around and saw he was in a room that had photos in frames of several people he knew; Snape, Dumbledore and even the Weasley twins!

"Where am I?" Harry said softly.

A man entered the room with a tray with something that looked like hot chocolate.

He sat it down on the table in front of Harry and turned to him.

"Hi again! Want some hot chocolate?" the man said.

"Remus? Where am I?" Harry asked again.

"You're in my home, Harry," Remus Lupin's face shone up an a big smile as he handed a cup of chocolate to Harry.

"Draco! He had me taken hostage! I..." Harry began saying, but Remus shushed him.

"Why don't you begin from the beginning so I can understand what has happened?" Remus said and took a sip from his chocolate.

Harry sat up straight and thought it all through.

And the first thing he said made Remus drop his cup of chocolate.

"Draco Malfoy is loose and Neville is still alive!"

----------------to be continued in chapter thirteen, "Wednesday"------------------