Harry Potter and the Heart of Regenesis

Chapter Eleven

The Next Generation

The fourth boy in the 1^st Year Gryffindor dormitory was the wonderfully named Ballington Booth. He was named after his great-great-great grandfather who was himself the son of William Booth, the Founder and first General of The Salvation Army. Ballington's family had been absolutely amazed when Minerva McGonagall had arrived at their house the summer before with his Hogwarts letter. (All muggle families were visited personally by senior Hogwarts staff if one of their children was to invited to the school - it would be too much for them to take in otherwise, as they had discovered centuries ago.)

He had been walking home from his trombone lesson and had noticed a cat sitting by the gate. He knelt down to 'fuss' the cat and opened the gate, walked through the garden and was greeted by his mother at the back door of their tidy house in Portsnorth on the South Coast of England. Ballington's family were one of the few branches of the Booth family tree who still attended the church their ancestor had founded in 1865; other descendents of William Booth included actors, atheists, a bishop and the muggle Prime Minister's wife! There were many of these branches (the Booths had lots of children), including the branch whose son Perry had been to Hogwarts thirty years or so earlier. But Ballington's family had no more heard of Perry than they had heard of Hogwarts.

His father, Bram, was the Corps Sergeant-Major at Portsnorth Citadel where the whole family, including his four older brothers and sisters (who were not magical) played in the band, sang with the Songsters (the rather grand Salvation Army name for 'choir') and the girls played tambourines. There had been Booths at Portsnorth Citadel ever since Ballington's great-great-great-great grandmother Catherine had opened the Corps there in 1873. Bram himself was named after William Booth's eldest son, Bramwell - the Army's second General.

Ballington was becoming quite famous because, despite only being ten years old, he had already developed an amazing talent for playing the trombone. He had played his first solo at a concert (or 'Festival' as Salvationists preferred to call them) when he was just seven and since then he had learned to play even the most difficult pieces in the instrument's repertoire. He had subsequently performed as guest soloist with most of the Army's best bands (please note that Portsnorth Citadel's own band was one of these) and the young prodigy had even played at the Royal Albert Hall with the London Symphony Orchestra where he played a very difficult Trombone Concerto.

He heard his mother suddenly say,

"Oh, hello. How can I help you?" and Ballington turned around to see a middle-aged lady (actually, she was older than almost all the women he'd ever seen but she looked middle-aged to Ballington) walking down the path behind him. She was wearing a dark green tweed suit and very sensible and well shined black court shoes. On her head was a matching tweed hat and the rims of her spectacles glinted gold in the afternoon sun. The stranger held out her hand and introduced herself.

"Mrs. Booth, my name is Professor Minerva McGonagall from Hogwarts School. I don't expect you've ever heard of us," she said very matter-of-factly. "Is your husband at home?"

Ballington had then sat with his mother and father and the strange lady while she explained to his bewildered parents exactly why he was such a good trombone player (she had said, of course and as all good teachers would, that 'all that practice' had also been vital in his development...but that there was an underlying reason as well...). They had reacted with horror at first when they heard her say that their son was a wizard. People who go to churches, in general, tend to recoil immediately at the mere mention of witchcraft and wizardry but the wily old professor was ready for all questions they asked and managed to reassure them in her quiet but firm and persuasive way.

"After all," she explained, "we have had had sons and daughters of Rabbis, Bishops and Cardinals at Hogwarts before and one of our one ex-students later became Archbishop of Canterbury! So why should we not be delighted to welcome," she asked them, "the great-great-great-great grandson of a General?"

So, Ballington was now at Hogwarts and he had brought his trombone with him. He had very quickly been taught the appropriate silencing charms so he could practice whenever he wanted to without disturbing the whole of Gryffindor Tower and he was practicing when Chris Creevey and the Llewellyn twins got back from the last training session before the 'twenty' and the 'reserves' from the Duelling Club parted company. From now on Chris would be going without the twins on Wednesday afternoons.

"I'll miss that," Ieuan sighed as he flopped onto his four-poster. "It's been fun."

"It might not be for long," Chris told him. It's only going to be a few weeks till the worst four drop off the bottom. Then you might be back in!"

"Yeah, and you might be out!" Geraint teased him. They all knew he wouldn't be out. Harry had been right in expecting Chris to be a good dueller like his brothers. He'd picked up the basics well and had even tried hexing Marley a few times already.

Chris pointed out of the window and said,

"Oh, yeah. When that pig lands over there! Oy, Bally!" he shouted. Just as Ballington prevented noise from going outwards during his enchanted practice sessions no noise could get in either so Chris threw a pair of rolled up socks at him to attract his attention.

"Wassup?" 'Bally' replied after waving his wand and mouthing (as far as they were concerned, for they couldn't hear him) 'Finite Incantatum', throwing the socks back as he did so and hitting Chris square on the nose.

"Do you wanna come with us three? We're going down to the library to do our History of Magic essays. Darla said she might be there!"

The four boys in the dorm were the four founding members of the DFFC - the Darla Flint Fan Club. All four had managed to fall in 'love at first sight' with the prettiest girl in Hufflepuff. As she had told Chris she was going to the library this evening then it meant they had to be there too. Where Darla was, they wanted to be.

They each gathered up some parchment and a quill and stopped in front of the large mirror, one after the other, to brush or comb their hair before they trotted down the stairs to the Gryffindor Common Room. Three of the four were blond, the only exception being Bally whose hair was plain brown and straight. The twins' hair was quite curly while Chris's was merely slightly wavy -the Creevey way. Bally didn't really feel fully part of their group but, to be fair to the other three, they had always done their best to include him in their escapades over the past eight months. He was glad of this and they were certainly his best friends at school.

As the quartet reached the Common Room Lara James, the 5th Year Gryffindor prefect questioned them as to where they were going. Ieuan instinctively rubbed his bottom - Lara had hit him there with a 'passus suo recto' barely half an hour earlier and he blushed when she saw him touching the sensitive spot. Then she laughed and told them to 'go do whatever it was they were doing' and the boys merrily went on their way. Truth be told Ieuan also had a bit of a crush on Lara James. Her - thingies - were so much bigger than the ones the girls in his year had - and he sometimes wondered what it would be like to have a girlfriend with 'thingies' like that! He also knew that Lara had a 6^th Year boyfriend, Fabian Tanner and his 'thoughts' about whether Fabian was allowed to see or even feel the 'thingies' had given him quite a few interesting feelings himself!

But it was Darla he loved. It was Darla they all loved! Lara was OK for looking at (especially bits of her!) but it was Darla he wanted to spend lots of time with. The fours boys were equally besotted. And Darla knew! She wasn't interested in any of them as a boyfriend - 'she was only just eleven', she had said when asked by her best friend Sharmin Dhillon which one she fancied - but she knew how they felt about her alright - she had even heard about the DFFC - and she was determined to put the four of them on little pieces of string and have a nice long game of puppets! Little did she know how soon that would change!

She was there waiting in the library when the four eager boys burst through the door just a little too loudly for Madam Pince and the old librarian stood from her chair in her well-practiced ritual and 'shushed' them with a vertical finger from chin to nose. Darla had made sure that she was sitting at a desk with plenty of spare places around it and the boys rapidly filled four of the empty five seats, Ieuan placing himself right next to her and Chris directly opposite.

"Hi Darla," Ieuan whispered and the greeting was echoed by the other three as they spread out their parchments and History textbooks. Darla simply lifted her head and looked at each of them in turn, smiling quite sweetly (and very demurely), and opening her eyes just a little wider, which made each of the boys' hearts leap in turn. Eventually, she sighed,

"Hi boys," and immediately went back to her work.

'Was that it?' Chris thought. 'Was that all she had to say to them? They who worshipped the very chair she sat on? They who hung on her every word, glance and breath'? He thought of something to say which might make him sound clever or mature but the best he could come up with was,

"What do you think of Binns' lessons?" It was a stupid question! Everybody thought Binns' lessons were boring - it went without saying!

"Oh, I think he does his best, don't you? It can't be easy can it? Being dead?" she replied.

'Was she being serious?' Chris thought.

"Um...I dunno," was all he could mumble. Geraint piped up with,

"Wonder what he died of? How long's he been dead?"

"D'you think he would have been a better teacher before he died, then?" Bally chipped in.

"Dunno," replied Geraint.

It was all bland stuff. None of the boys could say anything witty or funny, or anything at all, it seemed, to catch the interest of the object of their accumulated desires. But they were wrong, of course. Darla did hang on every word they said. Of course she did! She loved the feeling she got through knowing that the boys were incoherent, mumbling wrecks because they were besotted with her! Darla Flint might not look like the father she had never known but she could manipulate people every bit as well as he could when she wanted to. Most pretty girls could, of course! And she had ambitions; she wanted to be a prefect and Quidditch captain like he had been.

The only thing she hadn't been able to understand and control was why she had not been sorted into Slytherin house. With a father like Marcus and a mother from Durmstrang it felt like a mistake...

When the Sorting Hat was placed on Darla's pretty head 'Slytherin' had come straight into its mind. It was in Darla's mind, too, but something was bothering him...it just didn't 'feel' right to put her into Slytherin. It wasn't that the Sorting Hat felt guilty about putting pupils in any of the houses; it wasn't 'his' fault if someone chose to 'go bad' in any of them! He had sorted hundreds of thousands of witches and wizards and was proud of his record - very few, if any, outright mistakes. He still felt that Potter had gone into the wrong house and had discussed the matter endlessly with Dumbledore since. He did not agree that 'only a true Gryffindor' could have pulled Godric's sword from the hat but felt that anyone could have done so if it was needed at a particular time!

Darla Flint, though, was one of those tricky decisions. She had the right heritage for Slytherin, she wanted to be in Slytherin (he could read that in her mind) so why did he feel that she should be in Hufflepuff? Darla sat on the stool for fully five minutes while the hat argued with himself and he tried to resist her endless thoughts urging him to 'get on with it...Slytherin...Slytherin...SLYTHERIN!!!'

Finally, he had gone with his decision and announced, to her obvious dismay, "Hufflepuff". She rose from the stool, looked wistfully at the table to her right and joined the table on her left, which was filled with cheering Hufflepuffs.

While the four boys discussed a hundred and one ways Binns might have died (which included being bored to death by being forced to listen to a recording of one of his own lectures) Darla tried to concentrate on her essay. She shushed them a few times in a jokey way - as if she were a teacher reprimanding naughty boys - pretending to look cross but, inside, she was trying very hard not to laugh at the power she had over the hapless foursome.

She became rather frustrated, however when it had gone on for twenty minutes or so. She dug Ieuan in the ribs (which he enjoyed!) and tried to glare at Chris (but he pretended to look in the other direction).

Eventually, she put down her quill rather loudly and shouted,

"For goodness sake, you boys! I'm trying to work here!"

Her words had had the same effect as Harry's 'Silencio charm' at the Duelling Club - except no-one thought she had used wandless magic. The magic she had used was nothing more than her natural charm and the effect it had on the pre-teenage hearts.

There was an uneasy silence around the table as they boys looked at her in amazement. They were barely even aware of her shouting having attracted the attention and impending nearby presence of Madam Pince, though it surely must have. Darla never got into trouble but an outburst like that in the library surely would not go unnoticed! She was about to find out what being in trouble was like, they all realised at once. The boys occasionally played up in class (and out of it) and Ieuan had even had a detention once for letting off an extra-strong dungbomb in the girls toilets and trying to blame Verity Minton, their fellow Gryffindor 1^st Year who had upset him earlier in the Common Room by calling the Holyhead Harpies 'a bunch of ugly trollops whose husbands shagged sheep!'

The twins had several connections with the Harpies, not least the Welsh connection - the Harpies were the only major league Quidditch team in Wales although the Cardiff Bluebirds were rapidly climbing the professional ladder. In addition to this, they had two cousins in the Harpies squad, though they had not yet broken through into the 1^st team. Myfanwy and Gwendoline Jones were only nineteen and twenty; Gwen had taken over as Gryffindor Seeker when Harry Potter left school and Myfanay was an excellent Chaser. Owen Aberystwyth had them in his Under-21 Wales squad and both were expected to be Welsh Internationals one day. They also had a younger sister, Cariad, who was nine and could, reputedly, already spot a snitch a hundred yards away at twilight.

Verity Minton's outburst had been a response to some taunting by the twins because the Harpies had beaten the Chudley Cannons 340-40 the weekend before. Her father played Beater for the Cannons and he had had a particularly bad match, according to the report in the Daily Prophet which said "Minton had such an 'off day' that he might as well have had a 'day off'". Verity adored her father and thought he was a wonderful Quidditch player and was proud of the fact that her roommate Bathsheba Mason, another Cannons fan, had a poster of him on their dormitory wall (Verity had taken it home at Christmas and got him to sign it 'with love from Mike Minton').

What had got Ieuan into bigger trouble was his insinuation that the smell (which had seemed to fill an entire quarter of the castle) had not come from a dungbomb at all but had been caused by 'Verity's farting!'

Back in the present Madam Pince was standing over Darla Flint, her eyes narrowed and a look of thunder on her face.

"Miss Flint! How dare you shout like that in my library? No-one shouts in my library!" she shouted - absolutely unaware of the inherent contradiction. "Please leave now," she almost screamed at the stunned young girl. "And you are banned until the end of term!"

Darla looked like she was about to cry. Everyone in the library was, by now, looking at her and shaking their heads. Her four admirers shifted uneasily in their seats. Then one of them stood to his feet and said,

"Excuse me Madam Pince." It was Ballington Booth - his face very red and his heart beating so hard it felt like it was trying to break out of his chest. He knew the difference between right and wrong and he knew without question that Darla being embarrassed and upset like this was very wrong. He didn't know where the courage came from but he found it from somewhere and he dared to continue,

"Madam Pince, Darla didn't ask us to sit with her this evening," he stammered and spluttered. "We - we just came in and sat by her, pre-... pre- - tending to do our essays. We didn't really mean to do any writing, we...we just wanted to..." He couldn't admit why they were really there in front of Madam Pince and everyone else who was watching but many guessed from his deep crimson features.

"We were just talking quietly and... we were putting her off. She wanted to finish her work, Miss, but... we wouldn't take any notice when she asked us to stop. Then...then she just shouted, Miss. I think she was fed up. Please, Miss, let me take the blame - or us - but not Darla. Please? Miss?"

She looked at him over the tops of her small, round glasses. Then she looked at Darla whose soft, pink cheeks were highlighted by a trickle of tears. Then Madam Pince looked back at the other three boys who sat, heads bowed in their seats. She released Darla's robe from her clasped hand and nodded.

"Very well, Master Booth. Come with me. You three!" She pointed at Chris and the twins. "Go back to your Common Room - now!"

Darla was free to sit and finish her essay but she simply sat and waited for the other three boys to leave; she looked across and watched as Ballington was led away by the librarian then, quickly and embarrassedly, she packed away her parchments and quill and hurried out of the room.

Madam Pince left Grendel Chambers, the 7^th Year Slytherin prefect in charge while she led Ballington away to her office.

"Young Master Booth," she began when they had closed the door behind them in the small oval room. The walls were a deep 'cabernet sauvignon' red and a small standard lamp holding a single candle was all that illuminated the space. It felt, to Bally, a bit like the fortune-teller's tent at the fun fair. All Madam Pince needed was a headscarf and crystal ball to complete the illusion. But there was no crystal ball, just some papers on a small, flat desk and a paperweight in the shape of a hedgehog.

"That was a very...commendable...act out there," she said. "It takes great courage to accept one's own guilt in a situation. Few have the courage to do it. And I mean adults as well as children. It would have been easy to have kept quiet and allowed the situation to pass. Twenty points will be awarded to Gryffindor. However, I will take away five each from your 'not so brave' friends and also from Miss Flint. If you see the young lady please remind her that I will gladly deal with nuisances if...and only if... I either notice them myself or they are reported to me! A quiet word at my desk would have been enough for her to be able to complete her essay in peace.

"Now, please leave the library and return, with your friends to Gryffindor Tower."

Ballington nodded his acknowledgement and left the office. Now, as he walked out of the library all eyes were on him, so he continued to stare at the floor as he left. Closing the heavy library door behind him he heard a small voice address him.

"Thank you, Bally." It was Darla. "I thought I was in terrible trouble back there," she added. He thought he detected a bit of admiration in her eyes now. "I feel guilty now about you being in trouble," she added but he raised his hand as if to stop her.

"I'm not in trouble, Darla," he told her excitedly. "She gave me twenty House Points for 'doing the right thing'...but she took away fifteen for the others. She also took five from Hufflepuff for you shouting." His face reflected what he was saying throughout the whole series of events he described: pride - then resignation and, finally, apologetic regret. Then he passed on Madam Pince's advice about how she ought to deal with situations like that in future but he shrugged as he did so - it was very rare for any Hogwarts pupil to complain about another pupil's behaviour to a teacher, unless you were in Slytherin - and he didn't think Darla would ever consider doing such a thing. She was surprised to find that the thought was a bit distasteful to her, too. 'Maybe there were reasons she was in Hufflepuff after all', she thought to herself.

After he had told her all that had happened Darla informed Bally that she was going back to her Common Room. She gave a small wave and said,

"See you later." Bally smiled and then he thought of something else he felt the need to say. He took a very deep breath.

"Darla," he ventured. "Even if I was going to be in trouble, I'd have still done it. I'd - I'd do almost anything if it meant you would be happy."

Darla turned towards him and inclined her head slightly. Of course she was aware that the four boys all 'fancied her'. And, yes, she had willingly lapped up the fawning attention (although it had got out of hand this evening) but now - something had changed. Now she felt something for one of them in return. She widened her eyes and smiled at Ballington, making him feel wonderful. Then she leant forward and gently kissed him on the cheek. As she did so her hair brushed against his face and it felt like an electric shock. Every nerve in his body tingled and he smiled back at her.

"See you," he said.

"See you," she replied and each tripped away to the respective Common Room with light feet and a fluttering heart.

******************

Later that night and back in the dorm Chris, Ieuan and Geraint pressed Bally for details about what had happened after their departure. He told them about what had happened in the office, about the House Points and also about the embarrassing walk out of the library. But about the more personal exchange that took place outside the library he remained silent.

Instead, he relived the scene over and over inside his head - especially the kiss and the feel of her hair against his cheek. As he lay in his bed, surrounded by the luxurious red and gold drapes, Ballington Booth fell asleep with a wonderfully contented smile on his face.

******************

Chapter Twelve

Dark Deeds and Dinner

In a lower, darker and far less luxurious 'dirty green' bedroom some 40 yards or so beneath the Gryffindor dormitories Grendel Chambers and sixteen other Slytherins were talking about more serious matters. Only five of the group - they called themselves 'The Acolytes' - had a parent at home and only two of them had both, and they were brothers. Seven of them had lost both parents and were orphans, the others had one or both living parents incarcerated in New Azkaban. Most of their fathers had been Death Eaters and three of their mothers too. Grendel Chambers' own father was Asa Chambers and he was the highest-ranking ex-Slytherin pupil in the Ministry of Magic; he bore on his forearm the Dark Mark and no-one suspected him at all - least of all Eustace Bean - for Asa Chambers was the Deputy Minster of Magic.

That meant that at least one of Voldemort's former Death Eaters was still walking free. Grendel Chambers had been secretly trained in the Dark Arts since he was ten. Even before that the boy had been familiar with artefacts one would normally find only in wizarding museums or a shop cellar in Knockturn Alley - enchanted skulls, rings and amulets, books of Dark spells and all sorts of other paraphernalia were common in the Chambers house, which was situated on Fladda-chùain, a remote island 15 miles off the coast of Skye. Grendel Chambers could Apparate at six, as all his brothers and sisters had been able to as well. Grendel was the eldest of five children. Two others were already at Hogwarts: Ahab was in 5^th Year and Lennox in 3^rd (both Slytherin, of course). Moira, the elder daughter, would be at the school in a few months.

For the past two years Grendel Chambers had been training his own group of sycophants, 'The Acolytes', in Dark Arts, meeting secretly in the dungeons even before the houses were re-sorted. Complex and Dark silencing charms and impenetrable locking charms had prevented anyone ever discovering the late-night sessions - whenever the slightest suspicion had arisen amongst staff Grendel had cancelled all further meetings until monitoring ceased. The longest they'd gone without a meeting was just five weeks, though - he laughed scornfully at the pitiful efforts of Severus Snape - that sad, fake Slytherin, as he called him, married to a Gryffindor and forever sucking up to Dumbledore. A failed and traitorous Death Eater. A disgrace to the most noble house. 'Snape would never discover the truth about what went on in his own house if it were waved under his stupid, crooked nose,' he thought.

He'd so little suspicion of who was behind the suspected activities he'd even recommended Chambers for Head Boy! How Grendel would have loved that! Following in the footsteps of so many great Slytherin Head Boys: 'Riddle, Malfoy and Chambers. That would make a formidable trio,' he thought. 'If only that stupid mudblood-loving idiot Dumbledore had not vetoed his appointment!' He was determined to make his mark on Hogwarts history one way or another.

Now, Dumbledore was training his own duellers again. Chambers sneered at the thought. He had trained his team for two years. And he had been training them properly! His disciples could do better than stupid Passus curses, Impedimentio and, the very thought brought bile to his throat, tickling charms. The pupils he had trained by wandlight in the secret room had mastered Hara Kiri, Crucio had taken longer (and, as the first 'Unforgiveable' curse he had urged them to try, a lot more persuasion. Chambers had finally threatened to use it on any 'weak' members who refused. None dared.) and then, he recalled with great pride the 'Night of the Great Riddle' as Slytherins had dubbed the carnage found the morning after by Charlie Weasley.

"Tonight, we face a great adventure, my children," Chambers announced to the sea of expectant, admiring faces. "We go forth into the forest - the so called 'Forbidden Forest' - to do 'forbidden things'."

So had begun the lesson. Using one of the many secret passages out of Hogwarts Castle, one that began in the Slytherin dungeons, Grendel Chambers led the way. Right turns, left turns, the centre tunnel leading from a trident fork in the black, damp walls, unseeable doors which had to be charmed visible and charmed again with 'Dissendio' to open, passage blockages that had to be removed (and replaced again behind them with variations on the 'Reducto' charm) - these were just some of the details he had memorized long before he had even set foot in Hogwarts Castle. None of the followers tried to remember the way, their trust in their leader, by now, unshakeable. In their eyes he would be the next Dark Lord; they did not know he was only following orders himself.

Before long an opening stood before them that appeared to them as if they were looking through a window. The full moon shone brightly in the cloudless sky that night and illuminated the clearing in the forest, stealing the colour from the scene and making it appear like an old black and white photograph. A rabbit ran across the clearing and Chambers laughed. His laugh sounded rather unreal - as if his throat had been lacerated with evil - and he raised a hand to point to the group to walk forwards and leave the passageway. Chambers came last, behind them, turning to the opening and magically sealing it once more with a line of flame. As he turned away the last word they heard him incant was '...Flagrate' - the flames flickered with a green hue and all they could see in the place of the 'opening' was a thick, gnarled oak trunk looking no different from all the other oaks that surrounded the clearing.

Chambers took a sack from two 5^th Years. He tipped its contents onto the grass and lifted a large piece of raw lamb, slightly rancid and maggoty in front of his avid watchers. The smell coming from the meat was putrid, making some of the crowd retch and put their hands to their noses. Chambers rebuked them - punished them with 'Cephalo suo passus est!' which sent a searing flashing pain through the heads of all those too weak to endure what he called a 'mildly unpleasant odour'.

He gave out the meat to a few of them and bags of grain to others, then they were ordered to lay them around the edge of the clearing, sit back and wait...

After a few minutes a large black bird landed gracefully and settled next to one of the pieces of meat, then began to peck at it with its beak. Chambers stood silently and walked very lightly on the soft grass so his footsteps were almost completely inaudible. Before the bird could react Chambers drew his wand and shouted,

"Avada Kedavra!"

A shot of green light flew from the end of his wand and the bird, having been tempted to its untimely death, simply fell down dead. Chambers walked up to the bird, lifted it up like a trophy and threw it back down to the ground; all its previous grace and splendour had been transformed into utter disdain - Chambers even took his thickly-heeled boot and squashed the remains. No-one dared retch again but had there been light at the scene it would have revealed many pale, greenish faces.

"You!" he pointed his wand at a 6^th Year boy called Sergei Vissa. "Next!"

Sergei didn't have to ask Grendel what he was required to do. Before long a badger crawled into the clearing not, seemingly, interested in the temptation of the food. It began to scratch itself in the moonlight and, as Sergei hesitated nervously, Chambers hissed towards him,

"Him...or you!" Sergei had no reason to doubt the legitimacy of the threat. Shaking somewhat he lifted his wand, pointed at the helpless creature and tried his best to incant the worst of the Unforgivable Curses.

"Av-avada Ked...Avada Kedav." On each failed incantation a few green sparks shot from the end of the wand. Fortunately for Sergei, neither the sparks nor the incantation were enough to distract the badger and, as he saw Chambers raise his own wand towards him, he shouted (more in self preservation than anything else),

"Avada Kedavra!" and pointed his own wand towards the hapless badger. It was not the best aim, however, and the animal fell onto its side squirming and writhing in obvious agony. Chambers picked up the dying creature. It was bleeding profusely from a deep neck-wound all over his robes. As Grendel lifted it he noticed the partly decapitated head.

"Oh, look!" he laughed again. "It's Nearly-Headless Bloody Nick!" No-one at all joined him in his laughter "Maybe we should take it back to the Hufflepuffs!" he joked. Then he threw the dying badger into the air, waved his wand like a Quidditch club and shouted "Bludgerio!" - the badger sailed away through the air before colliding with another oak trunk with a sickening squelch. Chambers' mood suddenly changed. He faced his fellow Slytherins and shouted at the top of his voice,

"What's the matter with you! It's a bloody animal! How do you think you are going to kill muggles, mudbloods, wizards and witches if you can't kill a fucking stupid badger?" All the humour had left his voice now to be replaced by menace - and his face reflected the moonlight like a stone gargoyle in a churchyard, cold and evil through and through.

"Now, kill - or I will kill YOU!" he threatened them.

His shouting was enough to scare the assembled students but it had another effect as well. It was the night of the full moon. One by one the werewolves of the Forbidden Forest, aware of a disturbance, began to howl at each other. The noise rose over the forest like a choir of demons.

"Wh - what if one comes here?" asked Ramona Kaye, the other 7^th Year prefect.

"Then I am ready," Chambers reassured her, taking her hand in what now seemed a totally inappropriate show of affection towards the girl. Then, from his robe pocket he took a muggle pistol, undoubtedly loaded with silver bullets. He nodded at the girl. "Show them how it's done, Ramona." The badger's blood was still dripping from his hair.

Swallowing, Ramona raised her wand towards another rabbit about 20 feet to her right. She aimed and delivered the curse. Having been hit by the bright green light the rabbit lay dead. She stifled a sob and ran back into the group where he weakness might go unnoticed.

One by one the members of the Slytherin group were forced to step forward (he recalled how it got easier as more and more had participated in the slaughter). At the end of the session there was an awful debris. The bodies of owls, hares, two more badgers, several rabbits, rats and moles - plus a wild boar lay scattered around the clearing. Having collected the carcasses together Chambers shouted 'Incendio' and a fire consumed the evidence.

When Charlie Weasley had found the burnt out pile of animal skeletons in the Forest a the next day and reported it to the headmaster an investigation was launched - but no reason was ever found to explain the mass slaughter, or 'The Night of the Great Riddle' as it became known to Slytherins henceforth.

Snape had even asked Chambers to join the investigation! A simple 'Priori Incantatem' on any one of seventeen Slytherin wands would have revealed not just this truth but many, many others as well - but the use of that spell, unless authorized directly by the Ministry of Magic or an auror had recently been expressly forbidden, by order of a new law. This law, the 'Chambers Amendment' it had become known, had been the brainchild of the Deputy Minister of Magic and passed in response to concerns raised by 'Wizarding Civil Liberties', the same group who were, at this very moment in time, writing in complaint to the Ministry about the Head of Magical Law Enforcement, Arthur Weasley's new wave of raids.

In the meeting this evening the Slytherins were laughing at the feeble efforts of Harry Potter, Flitwick and the Crown brothers and the 'official' Hogwarts Duelling Club. They had just listened to a blow-by-blow account of the first four weeks of the club from their 'mole', Tabitha Tait. According to her, the most dangerous thing she'd seen so far was the 'Passus curse to the bollocks' she'd witnessed on the first day!

After much hilarity Grendel wound down the meeting with news that the dark wizards and witches of Great Britain would soon be able to acknowledge a new leader; one who would stand up for their rights, lead them to a darker future and restore pride in the achievements of those who had gone before and given so much in the cause of Dark Magic. He handed out a list of wizards and witches that contained the names of over one hundred names. Names of wizards they should know by heart, he told them - some alive, many dead - but names 'without whom', he whispered, things would be even worse today than they were.

He read some random names from the list in a hushed reverence. It included several parents of pupils present...and a few other names that would have been very familiar to Harry Potter:

"Davies, Evan; Malfoy, Lucius; Riddle, Tom: Pettigrew, Peter; Crouch, Bartholomew; Bagman, Ludovic; Krum, Viktor ...Chang, Cho..."

*****************

Around five hundred miles from Hogwarts Castle Molly Weasley was beginning to fret. It was not every day The Burrow hosted the three most important men in the Ministry of Magic - usually it sufficed that the third most important simply lived there. Today was different. Arthur had invited the Minister himself, his wife and the Deputy minister and his wife to dinner. Arthur, with Eustace, Asa and their wives were due to Apparate to The Burrow within the next half hour.

The Burrow was clean - check! Dinner was cooking - check! None of the children were due to make flying visits (she'd spent half the morning floo-ing them and owling them to make sure) - check! She was dressed and ready - check! Wine was in the bucket of ice (Molly still resisted Arthur's pleas for her to get a muggle fridge) - check! Butterbeers ready - check. Tea and coffee - check!

Her list of things to do was, as usual, quite comprehensive. You didn't make a success of bringing up nine children (well, seven 'full time') if you weren't organised - even if, as Molly did, you liked giving the impression of being a bit disorganised! The dining table was highly polished, having been cleverly transfigured from the rustic kitchen table that had been party to a thousand family meals, and glasses were lined up ready for when the VIPs arrived.

With a series of 'cracks' the five arrived, almost simultaneously, at the Weasley home in Ottery-St-Catchpole. Handshakes and hugs followed as the four dinner guests formally greeted their hosts. Aperitifs were handed round with canapés and, a short while later the six of them sat down at the table to eat.

On occasions like this the conversation topics were always wide-ranging but the etiquette was to stay 'off work' as much as possible. 'No talking shop!' Molly had warned Arthur a hundred times already. Mrs Bean spoke at length about her love of gardening - she was something of a 'muggle-lover' like Arthur and was part of the local 'Horticultural Society' in her village on the outskirts of Guildford, in Surrey. Glenda Bean had won 2^nd prize in 'roses' for the last four years. Molly nearly choked on a piece of carrot from her 'chunky vegetable soup' when she heard the Minister of Magic's wife exclaim,

"That blessed Petunia Dursley! I can't believe how she gets her roses so nice year after year without using magic! I must admit I cheated this year and did use magic - but she still beat me into second place!"

Next subject was children.

The Beans only had one son, a grown-up who had worked in the accounts dept for 'Flourish and Blotts' for several years. Before that he had been a broomstick salesman, going door-to-door trying to sell budget-priced Cleansweeps. This had been an embarrassment to his father and he had always told people that his son played Quidditch for the Worplesdon Wombats - which he did, part-time but as an amateur. Worplesdon was the next village to Little Whinging, by the way!)

Eustace then asked Arthur what his children were doing. He had thought about whether to ask this or not, as he realised the answer would take quite some time!

Arthur explained that Bill, his (and Molly's) eldest son lived 'just around the corner' with his wife Juliet and their daughter Natalie. Natalie was at University training to be a doctor although, he added, she hoped to specialise in cardio-vascular surgery eventually ('whatever that is?' he gestured apologetically). Bill, he said, worked at Gringotts in London and Apparated to the City each morning with his father.

Charlie, as they all knew, was Care of Magical Creatures Professor at Hogwarts as well as Head Groundskeeper. (Hogwarts had discovered very quickly that there had been no-one who could adequately replace Rubeus Hagrid on his own. Hagrid had not only been incredibly strong but was able to work for up to eighteen hours a day without flagging, something he had done throughout his tenure of the gamekeeper's job at the school. It took three men to do about three-quarters of Hagrid's work and it was an open secret that, if Dumbledore had been able to bring any one person back from the 'war' casualties it would have been the likeable half-giant whom he had loved as a son for more than fifty years. Charlie (and Arthur swallowed before continuing along this line) - was still not married although he had been in a 'relationship' for several years with a girl called Natasha. (Arthur also knew about the 'boy named Dmitri' by now but he didn't dare tell Molly this!)

Annie was known as Nita and she was a well-known doctor with a practice in Diagon Alley. Most 'well-off' wizards knew Nita Anderssen professionally and, it turned out that Eustace and Glenda were both private patients at the clinic. They knew Sam, of course, as he worked with Arthur and also the couple's daughter who was an auror and married to Percy, the third Weasley son. It caused quite some confusion, Arthur explained, to the family tree with Annie being, effectively, her own brother's mother-in-law and, of course, Katie's brothers and sisters-in-law were also her aunts and uncles...but that didn't bear going into any further around the dinner table!

Maggie/Peggy was married to Severus Snape and the two were both Hogwarts Professors. Molly delighted in waxing lyrical about their gorgeous twins Savannah and Stuey.

Percy they had already mentioned - although they stressed it was not just his wife who was an auror. George was the owner of the notorious Weasley's Wizard Wheezes and he lived with his wife Angelina and twins Rufus and Rowena in Hogsmeade.

Ron, they said, worked at the Ministry of Magic with Remus Lupin and was happily married. You did not mention Unspeakables even when others present knew who they were and what they did. Although Arthur, Molly and Eustace Bean would have known what Hermione did for a living it was by no means certain that Asa Chambers did, and neither of their wives would have had a clue.

"Ah, Ron!" responded Asa Chambers, as if dredging up a name from the depths of his memory. "He was one of the 'heroes' wasn't he, with the Potter boy?"

"Yes," replied Molly, proudly - "although all my sons and daughters were heroes to some extent in the final battles. Four of them were given Order of Merlin medals, you know?" Molly beamed. She knew she was unique amongst wizarding mothers - no other mother in history had ever had four children gain this honour. "There is also the Fred Weasley Foundation," she added. "In honour of the son I lost in the final battle." A tear came into her eye as it always did when she spoke about Fred.

"I was at the game when Ron played Quidditch for England," Asa commented, ignoring the fact Molly had diverted the subject away from her youngest son. "He was a fine, fine Chaser...but then he would have been, wouldn't he? Werewolf, I believe?" He said this as though it were something distasteful to him and Molly sprang to the defence of her son.

"That is not something we either mention or wish to discuss now! His...his...lycanthropic condition is simply unfortunate. He has learned to live with it and it is a private, family matter. He works at the Ministry and is as good as any of your other employees!" Asa, not wanting to stir Molly up any further, waved a defensive apology at her and said,

"Molly, my dear lady, please don't take umbridge with me. I was merely pointing out what I remembered about Ron - it was not my intention to 'put him down' in any way - least of all in a veterinary sense, ha ha," he chortled, trying to make light of the situation. "Many of my best friends are werewolves, as the author once wrote!

"Anyway," he continued, with a glint in his eye. "You may not have to worry about it for long. The 'Salt Solution' is almost ready, I hear - excellent apothecary that young witch Sherilyn Salt - I believe there will be a cure within the next few months. Is that not right, Minister?" he shrugged at Eustace Bean.

"I have heard that there is a strong possibility of that, Asa," Bean replied a little nervously. He could see that Arthur and Molly had also probably heard about the 'cure' and that they were of the opinion, at least for now, that it was 'pie in the sky'. They had also heard from Hermione on the subject and they had, like Harry Potter, got into the habit of calling Salt 'the quack'.

"There may be nothing in it, we have heard," Arthur responded.

"Oh, I assure you," insisted Chambers. "If Sherilyn says she's got a cure then she's got a cure! A marvellous achievement! Wonderful girl too!" he added. I also hear she's managed to...to get herself in favour with Remus Lupin, at least." Chambers said this is if he knew that they were already well on the way to becoming an item and with a nudge and a wink.

Molly had heard this rumour too and was not impressed.

"Remus Lupin is quite at liberty to socialize with whomsoever he pleases," she announced, like a Victorian Sunday School teacher. "He has rarely been particularly choosy about his...about the company he keeps 'after-hours'." This was her polite way of saying that she knew full well he would sleep with anything that had two legs and moved; male, female, young or old! (Although she liked Remus as a person she was quite appalled by his sexual proclivity and had frequently commented that she didn't regard him as hetero, bi- or homosexual but omni-sexual - 'he'd bonk anything that moved' she'd been heard to say on several occasions.)

"So, with his track record, why should this Salt woman be any different? I hear she's no better than him anyway when it comes to 'that sort of thing'. Hermione told me that even at when she was at school she was known as the Slytherin Sl-...". But Molly did not finish her rant as Gretchen Chambers, Asa's wife who had remained silent for the whole meal until now, suddenly jumped to her feet in a coughing fit.

Her plate rattled back down onto the table, chicken and vegetables spilled onto the clean, white tablecloth and a glass of white wine emptied its contents and rolled onto the floor with a shattering of glass. Asa Chambers stood and took his wife's arm, then began patting her back to relieve the choking. The rest of the party made suitable, 'Is she alright?' type noises and, when all the kafuffle was over they sat down and resumed the meal.

"Ahem," Arthur coughed, somewhat embarrassed by the interruption. Had she really choked on her food or had she merely created a diversion to stop Molly maligning Sherilyn Salt, he wondered? For that matter, so did the Beans. Molly was certain she had struck a very raw nerve with the Deputy Minister's wife!

"Sorry about all that," he continued. "Where were we? Ah, yes. Our youngest daughter..." he trailed off. He was heartbroken by Ginny and Harry's break-up. He had spent many hours over Christmas trying to talk sense into his precious, youngest child while Molly cooed over little David - they also found it hard to stop calling him Dai -but nothing he could say could persuade Ginny to even discuss Harry with him. The Weasley parents loved Harry as one of their own and Harry often said that Molly and Arthur were the nearest thing he'd had to a mother and father since his own parents had been killed.

"Ginny, as you probably know, is living and working in America." He left it at that. Everyone at the table knew exactly who Ginny was and what she was doing in America.

"So, Weasley," replied Asa Chambers. "All flown the nest! You're quite a bit younger than I am aren't you?" He looked at Arthur with a small half-smile and one raised eyebrow.

"I believe so, Asa. About fifteen years younger, if I remember correctly," he confirmed. "Why?"

"Well, I've a bit more hair than you, for a start!" he laughed. Arthur had been balding for years - it was a Weasley thing! Even Bill had started wearing hats to cover a 'thinning' that was becoming more and more evident as each year passed. Arthur had no hair left at all on the top of his head, just a closely cropped circle of red around the back and sides. Asa had a head completely covered in shining, white hair - which he kept shoulder-length and he smoothed it gently as he faced Arthur again after smiling at his wife.

Asa's comment was in no way meant to be rude - the pair had joked about their respective hairstyles (or lack thereof) before and all six guests laughed at Asa's good-natured ribbing and subsequent preening.

"I have to keep myself beautiful for my lovely, young wife," he smiled, looking at Gretchen again. "She's over thirty years younger than me - so I have to watch my step and keep ahead of all those lovely young men I keep finding admiring her!

"Seriously," he smiled. "My lovely wife is what keeps me young." Gretchen, who had been so quiet apart from her coughing fit, now reddened as she enjoyed the compliments and fuss being made by her husband. She smiled back and, as she did, her face lit up and she looked thirty-three years younger than her husband.

"That's why all my children are still at school, of course. Grendel is a 7^th Year prefect at Hogwarts - should have been Head Boy if truth be told," he added with a very clear growl of resentment sneaking into his voice.

"Grendel's younger brothers Ahab and Lennox are in 5^th and 3^rd Year and our daughters Moira and Ellie are 10 and 7."

He went on to give a very long and descriptive account of the island on which they lived off Skye and how they loved to sail. He proudly shared details of Grendel's ten OWLs and of how he was expected to excel in his forthcoming NEWTs. Apparently, Grendel would like to become an auror after school, they also learned. At least, that was what his father said!

*****************

After they had left Molly hugged Arthur and asked him,

"The Chambers? Are they completely trusted?"

Arthur looked surprised.

"Of course," he assured her. "He's been in the Ministry for - oooh - thirty years at least," he said.

"There's something about him I don't like, Arthur," she continued, a pensive look on her face. "Nor her!" she added, surprisingly. "What was it with that coughing fit? That was put on if ever I saw a fake! You don't live with Fred and George for seventeen years and not learn a few things about fake illnesses!

Anyway...what's with her and the Salt woman? Anyone would think they were sisters or something! She looked like something had crawled onto her fork and died when you were criticising the stupid, jumped up chemist!"

Arthur nodded and shook his head appropriately - he had learned not to argue with Molly long ago! Better just to let her say her piece and make out you agree, even if - as very rarely happened in any case - he didn't entirely agree.

"Asa's been there all that time, under the watchful eyes of aurors and all. Never suspected of anything untoward - to my knowledge," he shrugged - as if all the dark wizards who'd ever worked at the Ministry had been instantly recognised for what they were throughout history - which, of course, was far from the case!

*****************

If they had been able to see the Dark Mark tattooed under the crisp, white shirt on the forearm of their dinner guest that evening maybe just a few of the things which later came to pass might have been avoided but, of course, Asa Chambers was far too careful for that to have been even a remote possibility.

****************