Brian Knight Potter

Chapter Seven: A month later

Cody sighed and collapsed into the chair as Brian ran from the room in fright. "That's right, run! Run, to your room and cry!" he yelled after the child, extremely annoyed. The child hadn't done anything, but asks if he could have something to eat.

I can't do this much longer, he thought.

They should have arrived in Wales a month ago, but Malfoy had "accidentally" given them the wrong ticket. Instead of giving them a train ticket they got a month long tour of Europe. No refund, no exchanges, and no backing out. If he had known that he was going to be stuck with the brat for a month he would have bought more aspirin.

The tour had ended earlier in the day, and they were finally on their way to Wales, so he could deliver the child to Voldemort and let him deal with him. He growled as he heard the sound of someone apparating into the cabin on the ship. He slowly lifted his head out of his hands to see Malfoy standing in front of him.

"What do you what?" he growled.

"I came here to get you and the boy. We're going to portkey to headquarters. You've taken long enough, and he needs the boy now," he said.

"Brian, get in here this instant!" he yelled. He only waited a second before he heard the door, and approaching footsteps. Both men took in the child's appearance. His eyes were red and puffy. They could tell by that and the trail of tears on his cheeks, that he had been crying hard.

"We're leaving now. Remember the nice man I told you about? The one that will give you gummy worms?" he said sweetly to the child, kneeling down. He nodded, face lighting up. "We're going to see him now, and we have to leave this instant, okay? I need to be quiet until I tell you its okay to talk. Can you do that?" he continued in a sweet voice. The child nodded his head eagerly. He scooped him up in his arms before turning back to Malfoy. "We're ready. Where's the portkey?"

"Right here," he replied pulling out a newspaper. Cody touched a finger to it, telling Brian to do the same. Malfoy activated the portkey, and they all felt the tug around their navel before landing in front of Voldemort's headquarters.

*~*

It was lunch at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry when Professor Dumbledore stood up to make an announcement that would make all the students, except a select few, happy though they would begin to wonder if their headmaster might be better off spending a little time in St. Mungo's mental illness ward.

It took a few minutes for everyone to get quiet since the preschool class didn't want to quit talking.

"I would like to announce that classes for the rest of the week are canceled, and every day this week third years and above will be allowed to go into Hogsmeade." He sat down after that like nothing had happened. There was stunned silence for a minute before cheering broke out from most of the school.

Harry frowned at this. No class for the rest of the week? It was only Monday. Harry looked at Hermione across the table ignoring the cheering Ron. Why would Dumbledore cancel classes? They needed to go too classes now more than ever with the war going on. The cheering died down after a few minutes and Harry was able to talk again though he didn't get the chance as Ron started.

"Isn't this great? No classes for the rest of the week, and we can go to Hogsmeade!" he said excitedly, grinning widely. His smiled dropped as he saw the worried looks on his friend's faces. "What's wrong? Why the long faces?"

Harry opened his mouth to answer, but didn't get a chance to answer as Kelli from Ravenclaw came and sat down at their table. "Isn't this great?" she babbled. "No classes for a whole week! So, Ron, now you can finally take me out on a proper date," she said sweetly grinning at him. Harry sighed and managed not to say anything. He had just gotten back on good terms with Ron, and didn't want to end that so soon.

Kelli had shown up at school a few days after Harry had came back from Remus's. Dumbledore said she was supposed to have begun the school year at the normal time, but for some reason couldn't, and was beginning late. She had been sorted into Ravenclaw, but preferred to hang around Ron, Hermione, and Harry than her own house. The same day she got sorted she asked Ron out, and he said yes. Harry had no clue why he did, but he had. Ron had been attracted to her from the moment he saw her. She had constantly hung around them, pretending to be friends with them, especially Hermione, but Harry had overheard her talking to some of the Slytherin students calling Hermione a mudblood. He had confronted her about it, but she denied that it ever happened. He had tried to convince Ron to break up with her. He had blown up then, and refused to speak to Harry until a few days ago.

Harry didn't trust her. He didn't know why, but he had a distinct feeling that there was a lot more to here than any of them knew. There was something about her eyes that put him in the mind of someone sneaking around doing things they weren't supposed to. There had been times that she would do something that would remind him of Voldemort somehow. The way she laughed, or something she said. He had told Dumbledore this when he had been summoned to his office the day before. The man hadn't seemed to concerned, which worried Harry.

That was another thing that worried Harry: Dumbledore. He had been acting so different lately. Canceling classes for the week was just icing on the cake. He had been letting students get away with a lot of things, like fighting, without even taking away house points. He had canceled classed for parts of the day several times before. Sometimes he would call a student out of class and no one would see them for a few days, but they always came back with tons of nice clothes and presents. He had got all of the teachers assistants, all under thirty, with rather shady characters in Harry's opinion.

Two of them were drug addicts and could be seen smoking crack, or shooting up outside of the classroom, sometimes inside, if they were high enough. One other had to be locked in a room sometimes when he got to drunk. Three or four of them had other jobs as "exotic dancers" as they had called it. All of them had something seriously wrong with them, but Dumbledore wouldn't get rid of them as Fudge thought they were wonderful.

In the past month Fudge's opinion of Dumbledore had shot up, and was letting him do anything he wanted with the school, as he had promised.

Harry had written a letter to Remus about it, but never got to send it. Two weeks ago all the owls in Hogwarts came down with some kind of virus that made them not to be able to fly. It had been written about in the Daily Prophet so parents wouldn't worry when they didn't get any letters from their children. Hagrid and Madame Pomphrey had both looked at the owls, but neither knew what the problem was.

Harry was brought out of his musing as the hall erupted into cheers once more. "What's going on?" he yelled over the noise to Hermione who looked panicked.

"Never mind that, just hurry up and get out of here!" she yelled getting up from her seat and heading to the doors along with several other students. Harry followed suite, running towards the door. He stopped as he reached them and looked out onto the Great Hall as food starting flying, beginning the greatest food fight Hogwarts would ever see.

The house elves are going to have a horrible time cleaning this up, he thought before catching up to Hermione who was talking to Professor Snape. He caught the last end of Snape's sentence.

"I don't know what's wrong with him, Ms. Granger, but something defiantly is.

"Dumbledore?" Harry asked looking between the two. Hermione nodded. They had been talking to Snape a little more as he was the only teacher they suspected was in the Inner Circle of the Order.

"What about Kelli? The transfer student. Do you know anything about her, because I don't think everything is right there either," Harry said quietly. Hermione nodded her agreement.

"Which transfer student, Mr. Potter? We have gotten about fifty recently," Snape sighed.

"Really? I knew a lot had come, but I didn't think it was fifty," Hermione said surprised.

"No, we have fifty. I counted. Is Kelli if your year?" Snape asked looking between the two teens.

"Yes, she's in Ravenclaw," Hermione answered.

"Yes, her. No, I don't know anything about her than what Dumbledore told the whole school." He paused, seeming to be thinking. Harry and Hermione watched as his face turned from thoughtful to surprise. "Lupin, what are you doing here?"

Harry and Hermione turned around to see Remus Lupin standing behind them. Harry smiled broadly, relieved. "Remus, what are you doing here?" Harry asked walking to his outstretched arms.

"I came to see you, and see what was going on with the school. We haven't heard very much from Dumbledore lately, and what Severus has told us isn't good," he said releasing Harry to give Hermione a hug. "What's going on? Shouldn't you be in lunch? And why do I hear screaming?" he said looking around.

"Albus decided that it had been to long since we had a food fight, and declared one after he said that classes were canceled for the rest of the week and the students were allowed to go to Hogsmeade everyday for the rest of the week," Snape said. Remus raised his eyebrows.

"Really? That's doesn't seem like something he would do," he remarked with an arm around Harry and Hermione.

"There are weirder things. You haven't met the assistant teachers," Harry replied from Remus's right.

"Let's go somewhere were we can talk without being overheard," Snape interjected. Remus nodded and they followed Snape to his office.

*~*

Voldemort paced in his room, anxious for his son to get there so he could finally put his plan together. Cody better be right about the kid being the cutest otherwise everything would be ruined.

Well, not everything, he reasoned with himself. I can always put charms on him to make him look really cute and charm the guards at the Ministry.

He paced for another fifteen minutes before deciding he better go to the meeting room. He picked up the bowl of gummy worms that he had laid out. Cody had said it would make things easier if he had candy. He didn't know why, but he had been with the child more than he had and knew his habits better.

*~*

Brian shivered as they walked into the huge castle, for that was what it was, where the "nice man with the candy" lived. He turned his face into the crook of Cody's neck as the wind blew making him shiver again. They reached the door and entered a minute later, for which Brian was grateful. It was a lot warmer in here. He expected Cody to put him down, but he kept a hold of him. They walked through hallways taking many turns and twist, Brian was soon hopelessly lost, before coming to an open door and entering.

They entered a dimly light room with a man sitting in a huge chair at the end of the room. Cody put Brian on the floor, and nudged him forward. The child didn't take the hint. He grabbed Cody's pant leg, obviously scared. The man sitting in the chair was scary. He felt Cody nudge him again, but he held his pant leg tighter.

The man spoke. "Come here, child. I won't hurt you. I have gummy worms. Do you want some?"

Brian perked up. Gummy worms? If he had gummy worms he couldn't be bad, could he?

Cody gave you those, but he yelled at you. That was mean. This man might be.

But, he argued with himself, he might not be, and Cody was just annoyed at me. This man might get annoyed if I don't come to him.

"Come on, child. I'm not going to hurt you. "

Not yet anyway.

"If you don't come here you won't get any gummy worms. If you wait to long I might just eat them all," he said coaxingly to the child. That got him walking towards him.

That's it, come on, come on. I can't believe you're this gullible to come just for some stupid candy.

Brian walked towards the man in the chair. When he reached him the man picked him up and put him in his lap. Brian immediately reached for the gummy worms and started eating. He looked up at the man, looking into his eyes, but quickly looked down. His eyes were scary. He continued eating, answering the questions the man asked him. After a little while he began to feel sleepy and his eyelids started to drop.

He felt something like a pin prick on his arm and then a horrible burning sensation underneath his skin. He tried to jerk away, but the man wouldn't let him. The pain stopped a few seconds later, and then all he knew was black.

*~*