The Spellcrafters

Chapter Eleven, Collecting and Gathering Minds.

"Albus, I don't know if we could do more for Peter at St. Mungo's, but there is virtually no chance of him recovering here," said Hippocrates Vance, a respected Healer at that medical institution and one of Dumbledore's oldest friends. The two older men were sitting in the parlour of an old country mansion, enjoying the scarce Indian summer sunshine coming in through the bay window.

"Very well Hippocrates, thank you very much," replied a pensive Professor Dumbledore. "I was hoping he would recover on his own, but apparently the shock of seeing Harry was too much..."

"What?" the Healer said. "Hold on a minute, Harry... you didn't mention this before ... He went catatonic after seeing Harry Potter!? That changes the situation."

He sat back down in the armchair and took out his notebook. "Albus, I need you to tell me everything that he said and did that night. Everything, down to the smallest detail, no matter how insignificant you think it was. I may still get him to come around if I can work with that.

He quickly grabbed his auto quotes quill and a piece of Parchment out of his leather doctors bag and sat back down.

"Ok, I'm ready, tell me everything..."

"Well Hippocrates, I can't exactly tell you everything, since there are some security issues regarding that night, but..."

At Hogwarts, the answered questionnaires had started seeping in. They had only been handed out a day before and already created great controversy because of one of Hermione's little spells. She had enchanted the questionnaires. The outcome of the enchantment was that if you signed up with false intentions, you would pay dearly. Those wanting only to cause mayhem learned exactly why Hermione was considered the brightest with of her age.

You had to walk around with Prat spelled out in green pimples, all over your face for at least a week, since there was no counter spell. Adding to that, the worse the havoc you were planning to wreak, the longer you had to bear the stigma of those green pimples on your forehead. Something a few of the fourth and fifth-year Slytherins, who had signed up to do just that, tried desperately to hide.

By the end of the week, Harry, together with Professor Alex, had wrestled through piles and piles of applications they had received from all the interested students. Even second-years had enrolled, while the club was only intended for students of the last four years, as a kind of study aid with the O.W.L.S and the N.E.W.T.S in mind.

In the end, after going through all the acceptable applications (unfortunately the second and third-years that had signed up, had to wait a few more years), Harry had been left with a rather extended group of 'beginners'. The group was so large actually (because practically every single student from fourth year to seventh year had signed up), that it had become necessary to schedule a third meeting. Otherwise it would be impossible to work with the group because there were simply too many people."

Unfortunately for Harry, Hermione, and Ron, Draco Malfoy had made it through the screening; one of the few Slytherins who did. Based on his answers, Professor Alex had insisted he be accepted. In addition, the absence of the word Prat all over his face, which meant that he really wanted to learn, resulted in Harry grudgingly accepting him into the DA. Draco's goons, Crabbe and Goyle, however, had not made the cut. Harry had muttered something during dinner one night, about their answers being 'illegible' or was it 'illiterate'.

After all those formalities and a myriad of paperwork, the first new DA meetings would be starting up again next week. An old, empty, and dusty classroom had been converted into their new practice space (Filch had been sneezing all week, because he had to clean the room the old fashioned way), and all the people involved were excited and raring to go.

Monday, during lunch, Harry walked into 'his' classroom, to check if everything was ready for his first lesson later that night. Sirius jumped of his shoulder and went exploring underneath the furniture. Insects were always a nice addition to his diet... if he could find them.

He looked around the room, which had a right wall that was now adorned with an incredibly large and real Foe Glass mirror (a donation from the school board); a variety of large and small Sneakoscopes and other Dark Detectors placed visibly in a cabinet in the right hand corner. There were loads of bookshelves along the left wall, their shelves bending in the middle, because every book on Defence Against the Dark Arts ever written was weighing down on them. Madame Pince had very sparingly gathered all the oldest, most used and spare copies of various Defence books out of the library.

The floor had been covered with a thick padded mat, for added security, because you never knew what could happen when students were practising duelling. Snape had been adamant that there needed to be security measures and spells installed. Lastly, and very practically, a pile of pillows - you couldn't practice petrifying people without them - were stacked up in the left corner. Dean had even drawn a few colourful pictures, depicting duels, he had included the scenes from the duelling club a few years ago and the false Mad-Eye Moody's confrontation with Malfoy (bouncing white ferrets all the way), to brighten the space up a bit.

Harry smiled and called Sirius, who had found himself a cockroach, back. Next, he turned around, locked the door, and walked to the Great Hall to get some lunch. It was going to be a long day. He would have to assess all the new applicants today and decide how he was going to divide them into groups. He would have to be very careful so as not to give some of the students the idea that they weren't good enough...

Hippocrates was talking softly to the curled up figure that was lying in the corner of a white padded room. He had considered moving Pettigrew, after hearing how he got into this state and had eventually decided against it. His patient would be in a lot more danger, if any knowledge of his whereabouts were to find it's way into the outside world. Instead, he had converted a room in the remote mansion to suit his purposes. "Peter, I know you can hear me... Snap out of it. There is nothing you can help Harry with if you are lying here pretending to be dead."

It was already beginning to turn dark outside, the sun was setting, but that wasn't visible from the small and only window in Peter's room.

The good Healer returned daily, a few hours at a time, trying to pry Peter from his shell. Ever since Dumbledore had told him that outside factors had been the trigger of the catatonic state, his patient was in he had regained hope that he would be able to cure him.

He had considered the rather peculiar relationship of Peter with Harry Potter and had decided to change his method of treatment. Before, he was just trying to get a reaction out of him. Now he was tempting him to act; he was provoking him endlessly.

The figure whined and covered his ears.

"You want Lily to forgive you... but you won't do anything to help her son. The son you put in danger. The son, who has already saved your life once, just like his father. How many times did James save your life, Peter? Don't you owe his memory at least that, don't you owe it to him to protect his only child?" the Healer continued.

Hippocrates approached the balding man and put his hand on the scrawny shoulder in front of him. Next, the figure started thrashing and arms and legs were flailing through the air. Luckily, Hippocrates only was hit with an arm once and to his advantage, it was the arm made of flesh and bone. He would have gotten more than just a bruise from the silver hand. He might even have broken his arm.

He waved the guards who had just opened the door and returned his gaze to the quivering man in the corner.

Not showing any apprehension or pain, he continued talking. "Now, now, is that really necessary? You might even hurt yourself. If you continue like this, I'm going to have to use a Muggle device on you. A straight jacket, now I know you wouldn't like that."

"So behave. Peter," he added in a stricter tone, "you are no longer an ickle toddler who doesn't know any better. Snap out of this now! You are a grown man, a grown man who owes a Wizard debt. It is time you honoured that..."

"Good evening, everyone," said Harry while all the applicants were walking into the classroom. "If you would all please take a pillow out of the pile in the corner and sit down. If everyone is here I will start explaining what we're going to do today."

Harry received a curt nod from Professor Alex, who was quietly sitting in the back of the room, when everyone had found a place to sit down. The Professor was simply present, observing for the moment, but ready to intervene if necessary. Not that she really expected to, Harry seemed to know what he was doing. She noticed that his little pet was nowhere to be seen, a good thing at that she thought. It might get hurt with all those rogue spells that would soon be flying around.

As soon as it looked like Harry started speaking, a silence fell over the students. They had heard a lot of things about this Defence Association from the few students that had already been members last year. They didn't really know what to believe, but with Harry Potter teaching it - the boy was either portrayed as a madman, who should be locked up in St. Mungo's or the magical worlds saviour, who could do no wrong - it should at least be interesting.

"As you might have noticed, there are quite a lot of people here today. That is because so many of you signed up. This means that we have to split you up to get workable groups. Something we are going to do now. You may be asking yourselves, 'how are they going to do that?'"

"Well no, we are not just going to flip a coin," Harry replied, to a whisper he heard coming from the back. "Nor are we simply going to put the Gryffindor and Hufflepuff houses together and pair up Slytherin and Ravenclaw. No!

"We are going to ask you to perform a few spells and will then divide you according to your skill levels. That way we will get groups that are evenly matched, and we will be able to progress with training much quicker. Now does everyone get the idea?"

A mumble of consent bubbled up.

"Ok, we are going to start with a very simple spell, Expelliarmus."

Whispers started flying across the room. 'That old thing?', 'He has to be kidding?', 'I've been able to do that since my first year!', 'I thought we were supposed to be learning something new here.'

"Everyone, if you would please pay attention a little longer, before you let your tongues rattle off into the sunset. I will explain why I would like you all to perform this 'basic' charm."

"In reality, the Expelliarmus spell is the easiest spell to do. I am sure that you all agree. However, as you will see when you look around the room later on, some people will be vastly better at disarming their opponent than others. That is because the Expelliarmus spell is a very good thermometer of sorts. You can slightly read how focused a person is at anything magical by it. So, do not worry if you do not do well at it the first few times. With practice and more practice everyone here will improve."

"Let's begin. If twenty people would come forward now please, we can start dividing you. Hermione and Ron will be helping me with that," he gestured his two friends forward, "since I only have two eyes, I can not possibly judge you all at once," Harry quipped with a smirk on his face."

Twenty students came forward, wands in hand. The others gathered their pillows and sat down against the walls, out of harms way. They watched the duellers and waited for their turn.

Harry quickly looked over the first twenty duellers. Milan and Delphine had stood up first and were already facing each other in apprehension of the go signal. A few of the other Gryffindor transfer students had also come forward. One of them, a lithe Beauxbatons student, was facing Draco Malfoy. Malfoy seemed almost too eager to prove he could do better than anyone else in the room. Just in case, Harry positioned himself nearby to keep an eye on things.

"Very well, is everyone ready?" Harry asked. "Go."

Spells started flying about the room, ricocheting off the Foe Glass, the sneakoscopes, upending books from their shelves. Only a handful actually hit their target and did what they were designed to do, separate opponents from their wands.

To Harry's annoyance one of the better spell-casters had been Draco. He sighed, shrugged, and thought to himself, 'What did I expect, of course they would teach that in Junior Death Eater Academy'.

Meanwhile in the dungeons, Snape and Max were working hard on finishing the Simulacrum of a human being they needed to test the Crenellation Coal Potion on. If all they needed had been a simulacrum of an animal to test the potion, it would have been done a long time ago. However, when you were making a human simulacrum, a lot of preparations preceded the actual process and a lot more ingredients were needed for its concoction. All the conditions had to be exactly right to have an accurate model that would mimic human reactions and frailties when exposed to a new Potion.

For the last three weeks, Max had been gathering the necessary ingredients for the Simulacrum Potion. Silverthorn, which had to be picked on a new moon, or it would lose its potency and lotus blossoms, which had to be plucked just before they closed their petals at night. Some of the ingredients were even life threatening to obtain, like the freshly drawn Dragon's blood.

Finally, the Simulacrum Potion was ready all it needed was a mould to copy. Thoughtfully, Severus Snape twisted a single hair round his fingers and pulled it from his head. Next, he dropped it into the large silver cauldron that contained the potion and stood back to see if the potion had been correctly brewed.

"Now we'll see if it works," said Max.

Snape wasn't entirely sure if Max was talking about the Crenellation Coal Potion or the Simulacrum Potion but uttered a grunt in compliance none the less.

Before their very eyes, a thick mist billowed up from the cauldron, creating a wall of smoke that prevented them from seeing what was going on beyond it. When the mist eventually lifted a somewhat placid, humanlike figure was standing stark naked in the silver cauldron, staring into space with a blank expression on its face.

Snape first altered the Simulacrum's hair colour from black to a bright green, to make sure there would be no mistaking identities. The two Potion brewers now had to act relatively quickly, because the Simulacrum would only last as long as the Dragon's blood was fresh (which was only for a week or so), to do their tests. However, if the Crenellation Coal Potion were ineffective, they would have even less time and no longer any need for it anyway.

In a house, on a normal street, in a normal town in the west of Wales, in the middle of the night, a little girl got out of bed and walked over to her window that overlooked the street. The streetlights were out... that was unusual, she squinted to make out something in the darkness that appeared to be moving... There were four tall, gangly figures standing in front of her house. The four figures were robed totally in black. Not an inch of skin could be seen anywhere because of the billowing of fabric draped on them.

The little girl felt the temperature in her room drop and slowly an old and dreaded memory reared its ugly head...

Phoebe was six years old. She was mommy's precious little girl. For the last two weeks she had been begging and driving her mom crazy wanting to go to the mall for some newfangled toy. Finally, her mom had given in, and that Saturday they had gone to the nearby mall, a small family outing. Mom, Dad, her little brother in his stroller and Phoebe were wandering about a huge covered shopping mall.

Phoebe gaped at everything and without paying attention to where her parents were headed... she wandered off. Her parents, who were busy looking at baby clothes for her baby brother, didn't notice that she wasn't trampling about, making noise that she wasn't getting enough attention...

It didn't take Phoebe long to realise that mommy and daddy weren't behind her anymore. She couldn't see them anywhere. All she saw were strange people that shoved her to the side. People that didn't even notice her or almost ran her over as they hurried trough the corridors to get to the local supermarket.

She felt totally alone, even though she was in a space that was crawling with people...

Suddenly a small, scrawny man, appeared along side her and offered her his hand saying, "Are you lost little girl... Let me help you, we'll find your mommy soon enough."

Phoebe remembered what her mom had always told her... 'Never go along with strange people... and if they insist start crying, attract as much attention as possible'.

"No, I don't want to," she said clearly.

"Come little girl, you do want to see your parents again don't you?" The man, dressed in tattered old clothes that were practically falling apart, repeated his offer, "I'll take you to them right now..."

She fell to the ground and started crying. As if by magic, the sound of Phoebe crying was amplified throughout the mall and very soon her mom and dad, rushing the stroller through the crowd that had gathered around the little girl, appeared. The man, who had been extremely startled when she had started crying, had disappeared inside the crowd.

"Phoebe? Are you all right honey... why did you wander off, pumpkin? We were so worried!"

"Mommy that strange man wanted to take me away..."

Next, her dad picked her up and the family rushed out to the parking lot and back home safely...

When she heard a faint crying through her daze, coming from somewhere inside the house, she snapped out of her dreaming and hurried over to her little brother's room, where the crying came from. He was upright in his crib, balling his eyes out because he had had a nightmare.

Phoebe walked over to the window and saw the four figures gliding out of the street and around the corner. As soon as they were out of sight, the streetlights popped back on...

The next day the rumours had started flying about the little town. In the bakery, two old ladies were talking to each other about the nightmares they had had.

At the grocery store, the cashier was talking to the town doctor, "A blackout combined with a nightmare epidemic? Who ever heard of that?"

However, nobody mentioned the four strange visitors. Nobody had seen four figures robed in black gliding along the streets... only Phoebe.

Chapter Twelve, Uprising of the Soul-Eaters.