Prophecy

Aftermaths

For more than three hours, the group went over the spell. Finally, James stopped them. "There is nothing wrong with the spell that we can find. We're going to have to take this to somebody that might be able to find what went wrong and how to fix it."

"James we both know nothing went wrong. The prophecy says that Eight will become one, and we are eight." Rose paused and considered her brother carefully. "You just don't want to be the one to tell Daniel he's not part of the Prophecy after all."

"Tell you what Sister mine, you tell me how to explain to Daniel that we've known for nearly a month that he isn't one of us, and we didn't tell him, and I'll do it." James waited for a response, but Rose shrugged. "Rose, remind me of this, next time we start putting things off again."

Emma Weasley was staring at them again. "I thought we did this so we could hear the arguments you three were having."

James just looked at her. He reached with the new link he could feel in the back of head. "We did Emma, but the Soulbond and the twinbond are on what you might call different channels. When we talk about anything to do with the Project, we'll use this one."

At James's first words, the five members of Chimera that had never had anyone speak inside their head stiffened. James grinned at them, and spoke aloud. "You get used to it rather quickly. In a week, you'll use the link as naturally as you talk."

For the next hour, they cleaned Hagrid's cabin, leaving it a lot cleaner than when they arrived. As they cleaned, James and Rose gave them advise on using the link. The group practiced using the link, finding that a person's mental 'voice' didn't sound exactly like their physical one. They did find one problem James and Rose couldn't help them with. They only had one person in the twinbond, and that was true of the Soulbond as well. Eight people in one link though, tended to make talking annoying, as everyone would hear everything said, even if it was meant to be private.

Lisa was the first to figure out how to talk to just one person down the link, and she showed the others. "We're going to have to come up with new words," she said dryly, as she tried to explain it. "I mean, we're not really talking to each other right now, but I don't know how to put it any better."

Everybody felt the twin's amusement at some private thought. The twins used the link to tell the rest about their attempts to create a new vocabulary to describe what they were doing.

Hangeld was more interested in how they sent an emotion through the link. That was easily explained, and soon they were all trying it.

Mercy and Daniel were still going over the spell, hoping to find anything that would account for Daniel not being linked with the rest, and Prefect Moore was fascinated by the link. He would pull one person at a time to the side and ask them to describe the entire experience. Prefect Moore was getting increasingly frustrated as time went by, as none of them could really explain what it felt like to be linked like that.

"Give it up," said Rose finally. "James and I have been trying to explain our link to our parents for nearly three years now, and we still don't have the words. You really have to experience it to understand it."

Moore frowned and then blinked. He sat down, and read over his notes carefully, examining the spell. He looked up and directed his next question at the twins. "What would happen if I tried the link spell with someone?"

Tiffany answered that. "We're not really sure. The spell you hold uses a link of some type that is already in place, and merely expands on it. Without a pre-existing link, James doesn't think it would work."

"What about changing the spell, to create the link?" he asked next. James and Rose sat down and the rest of the new link could feel their thoughts, but not quite touch them, as they discussed the possibility.

James finally looked up, and his face was serious. "It might be possible, but what for? We did this for a reason, and I would hope you have a good reason also."

"I do. The prefects have been discussing the project amongst ourselves, and we want to offer to help. You may be the ones that have to defeat the Patient Child, but we don't believe he'll work alone, do you?" Prefect Moore was watching James, knowing that he would make the final decision.

James turned to the rest of the group. What do you think? He's right that we believe there will be others with the enemy, and having somebody to keep them off our backs would nice."

"If they're willing, I don't see why not." said Emma. "After all, it's not as though it's going to hurt us."

Adam agreed. "Although, I would make the spell you give them, one we can reverse, in case something goes wrong down the line somewhere."

Lisa's comment caused a few laughs. "What could it hurt James? Wouldn't it be another of those 'Calculated Risks' you're so fond of?"

"Not to mention, that since they know what we face, if we don't let them help us, they might try to work on their own." Hangeld was looking off into space as he followed his thinking to the end. "They are Gryffindors, and being kept out of something this big would not sit well I think. We could find ourselves working at cross purposes with people that should be our allies."

James listened to all the views and turned back to Prefect Moore. "We're going to have to work on the spell, and we need to talk to all of you first. I have two conditions before I give you the spell. I won't go into them now, but I will need total agreement before we do this." He looked at his watch. "Right now, it's nearly lunch, and we need to talk to Professor McGonagall."

The group headed back to the castle, and went to lunch. As they walked in, two Hufflepuffs were coming out. They saw James and Tiffany, and suddenly turned around and went the other way. James and Tiffany looked at each other and shrugged, not understanding what it was all about. Rose frowned, thinking about something that had been nagging at the back of her head all week. She couldn't quite put her finger on it, and it was annoying.

At lunch, the group lingered, waiting for Professor McGonagall to finish eating. When she got up to go, Prefect Moore met her at the door, and they talked for a few minutes. Prefect Moore came back to the group and told then that the Professor would see them in a few minutes.

Prefect Moore led the group to Professor McGonagall's door and knocked. She told them to enter, and the group trooped inside. The Gryffindor house head looked at them expressionlessly. James stood up and explained what they had done, what had been planned, and what had happened. He showed her the spell, and the adaptation that they had used today. When he was finished, Professor McGonagall raised one eyebrow slowly.

"Let me see if I have my understanding of this matter correct. You modified an unknown spell, cast it on yourselves with no testing, and now that it went wrong, you want me to fix it. Is that correct?" The Professor's tone was quite cold.

James shook his head. "Not exactly unknown Professor. Rose and I used the spell once before, and it worked perfectly. All we changed this time was the number of people, and it should have worked. It did work, for everyone but Daniel. What we want to know is how Daniel is different, and how we make it work for him."

Professor McGonagall looked over the spell and the adaptation in silence. When she was done, she asked several searching questions about the creation of the spell, which James and Rose answered. When she was done, she looked up. "All of you share the link James and Rose used to have now, is that correct?"

James grinned as he looked at the Eight. A quick thought and they started.

James: "Well, it's not"

Tiffany: "quite as good"

Rose: "as their Soulbond"

Melissa: "but it should"

Lisa: "be very effective"

Adam: "when we start"

Hangeld: "Fighting the Patient"

Emma: "Child's unlinked forces"

Professor McGonagall watched the round robin sentence with barely a raised eyebrow. "That is fairly interesting. It will take some getting used to I imagine. I cannot tell what went wrong for Mr. Creevey, and I think the Headmaster needs to see this anyway. Prefect Moore, would you bring this group to the Headmaster's office after dinner please?" Prefect Moore agreed, and the group left to continue working with the link.

Outside, the group continued to practice with the link. James and Rose showed them how to send a mental image to somebody, and how to use the link to move at the same time. By the time dinner came, the group was practicing talking to just one person, and Prefect Moore had to call them twice to get anyone's attention. When he did finally get Emma's attention, he was slightly unnerved when all eight heads looked at him at the same time. "That's very spooky you know." He said.

James grinned at him. He sent a few words to the rest of them, and spoke to Prefect Moore. "No, that's just odd, this is spooky." As he spoke, the whole group moved as one, falling into a line and heading for the castle arms and legs swinging in unison without a word being spoken aloud. Prefect Moore watched, and he had to agree with James. The line had become a group by the time they got to the castle, and they went to dinner like any other group of students.

James and the rest of the first years had always sat at the end of the table furthest from the Teacher's table, and since the Gryffindor table was a bit bigger than needed this meant there was usually a few chairs empty between them and the rest of the students. Prefect Moore and Mercy had taken to sitting with them, and tonight they were a taken back by the change in the group. The eight linked students didn't speak to each other, although it was easy to see when they were talking to somebody. The person speaking and the person being spoken to would get an absent look on their face until they were done. Figuring out whom they were talking to was also easy; as most of them had a tendency to look at the person, they'd been talking to when they were finished talking to them.

Daniel put up with it for most of dinner, but finally, he said something. "Hey, if you bloody mind readers don't mind, there are a few of us left that can't hear you. How about talking to us also?" Eight people looked at him at the same time.

"He's right, we're being rude, as if we were speaking in a language nobody else knew." Hangeld said, and for the rest of the meal, they tried to use their voices to talk. After the meal, Prefect Moore took them to the Gargoyle that guarded the door to Professor Dumbledore's office, led them up the stairs behind it. He knocked on the door, and when the Headmaster bid them enter, they went inside. Professor McGonagall and Professor Flick were there, and there were enough chairs for everyone. After everyone was seated, the three Professors began interrogating James and Rose about the original spell. When they were done with that, they interrogated all the students that had helped adapt the spell. James, Rose and Tiffany had done the adaptation. Explaining the whole thing took nearly two hours, and when they were done, the three Professors went over the spell and all the notes again.

When they finished, the two Househeads went out, and Professor Dumbledore looked at the students left. He started to send Prefect Moore and Mercy away, but James told him not to bother, as they knew all about the project. Albus Dumbledore looked at James. "How many people know about this thing now?"

James frowned. "Total, or just here at Hogwarts?" Albus indicated the school. "You, the four Househeads, all the Gryffindor Prefects and all the first year Gryffindors." he thought for a minute, and came up with the number. "Twenty-one people in all Sir."

Dumbledore frowned, and added three more that James had forgotten about. "Madam Pomfrey, and both Professors Potter as well."

James rolled his eyes. "We might as well take out an ad, asking for more people."

Professor Dumbledore sighed. "I think I know why the spell excluded you Daniel." Daniel looked up, and studied the expression on the Headmaster's face. "I wish it was something that we could fix, but it is not. I believe that these are the Eight of the Prophecy." Daniel paled, looking around at the others.

"But, you all told me I was the eighth one." He protested. "I've been studying and everything." Daniel looked around at the eight students who the spell had worked for and his face fell. "I see." He said softly. "I'm just not good enough."

James looked at him, and his eyes were hard. "Nobody but you has said that yet, and I am not going to take anything from you. We're already planning on letting Prefect Moore and a couple of others use the spell, and there is no reason you can't join them."

Daniel didn't say anything, and after a minute, Professor Dumbledore spoke again. "Prefect Moore and who are going to use this spell?" James shrugged.

"I'm not sure yet. He hasn't brought them to us, and Rose, Melissa and I will have to pass them before I allow anyone to use it again, plus I have to change the spell a bit."

Albus Dumbledore looked at James over his glasses. "If you don't mind, I'd like to sit and watch that. Your talents for modifying spells are impressive, and I would like to see them in action." James grinned and started explaining what the new spell would do, and how they would change it. After about a minute, he turned to Prefect Moore.

"I can talk to Rose as I need to, why don't you get the other people you want in your link, and go with Rose and Melissa. Talk to them, and we'll make our decision about your link." Prefect Moore, Mercy and Daniel got up, along with the rest of Chimera except Tiffany. James looked at them, and Hangeld answered the unspoken question.

"We've all seen you and Tiffany working, and you'll never notice if we're here or not. We can go work with the link somewhere else." James grinned, and turned back to Dumbledore. He was back in the discussion before the group cleared the door. James, Tiffany and Professor Dumbledore finished adapting the main part of the spell, and James began creating the change that would allow the Eight to take the link away.

Professor Dumbledore figured out what he was doing quickly. "Do you really think that is something you're going to need?"

James stopped and looked at the Headmaster. "I hope not. If everything goes well," he said soberly, "nobody will ever know we can do this. However, I would rather be able to do it, and not have to break a link, than need to stop a link and not be able to." he shrugged, looking Professor Dumbledore in the eye. "Uncle Alexander calls it Paranoia 101, and says that even noids have enemies."

James, we have the people that want to link or work with us, because not all of them want to link. Are you nearly done so you can talk to them?" James heard two things in that quickly delivered statement.

His voice would have fooled anybody but his sister. "Rose, how many people do you have with you? I did hear you say 'not all of them' didn't I?" James waited for an answer. After a couple of minutes, he realized Rose wasn't going to answer him, and looked at Professor Dumbledore. "I'm going to have to go, Professor. My sister is UTS again." James got up, and headed out the door leaving Tiffany to discuss the spell with Albus.

Professor Dumbledore looked at Tiffany, and slowly raised one eyebrow. "His sister is what?"

"UTS" Tiffany grinned at she responded to his look. "It means Up To Something, Sir. I've been trying to figure out when those two aren't up to something."

While the Headmaster and Tiffany had a quiet smile at the twin's expense, the male half of the duo was climbing the stairs to the fifth floor. James didn't know why they chose to meet on the fifth floor, but it didn't really matter to him. He was more interested in what Rose was hiding. James, just hear us out before you do anything rash ok?" Rose sounded nervous in his head.

James stopped and sat with his back against a wall. "If you're this worried about it, I'm going to sit here until you tell me what you've been up to that makes you so nervous."

"It's very simple. Melissa and I have been quietly recruiting a few people that we need for our Project." said Rose quickly. "We've both checked them, Empathy and Sight, and they are all safe for us until the war begins. They're not all safe, but we are."

"I told you to do that I think, or at least didn't say anything when you thought about it. So why are you so nervous?" James was beginning to get nervous now, waiting for whatever Rose was hiding to drop on him. "Just tell me Sister mine, I'm far enough away that you can escape."

"Very funny James." Rose stuck a mental tongue out at him. "There might be a few more people here than you were expecting. I know you were thinking of seven or eight more people helping us... but we have a few more than that."

"Is that it? You've talked to more people than you told me about the Prophecy?" James frowned, thinking about what she had said. You said that you had checked them all with the Sight, and Melissa used her Empathy, so they're all going to be useful. What's the problem? How many more do you have? Fifteen, sixteen?"

"Forty-two with us, and Prefect Moore is still after the five from Slytherin."

Downstairs in Dumbledore's office, Tiffany jumped as anger spiked through James. "James what's the problem? You can trust her with twenty people can't you?" she waited for him to agree and continued. "So if she can collect twenty people without making a mistake, why don't you think she could do forty people with Melissa's help?"

"Actually, Greeneyes, if you had waited you might have noticed that I was not angry anymore. I do trust the Flower child, it just caught me by surprise." James got up from his seat and headed toward the room his sister had gathered her people in. "Although, I would like to hear the logic chain behind you collecting so many people."

Rose gave a mental shrug and explained carefully. "It's fairly simple. This war is going to roll over the entire world, correct? We can only be in one place at a time. Therefore, we create and train 6 teams to watch different areas, and that way, we can concentrate all our efforts on finding and dealing with the Patient Child. We would just run ourselves ragged trying to keep up with everything, everywhere. This is a bit too important to lose simply because we were a bit tired."

"Sister mine, once again, you have shown why you're the smart one." James entered the fifth floor room where Rose was waiting as he sent that and looked at her candidates. He looked around at the people in the room. As he had expected, the majority were Gryffindors, and the rest of the group appeared to be evenly split between Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs.

"Hello everybody. Give me a couple of minutes to catch up with Rose here, and I'll be right with you." James continued to look over the crowd, as they spoke. "Ok, Rose, explain to me how you managed to look down enough paths with the Sight to collect this many people. I thought you couldn't follow that many paths."

"I didn't. I asked Prefect Moore to recommend one person that would work with us from each House, and then talked to them first. After they passed, I had them recommend another, and then that person recommended one until we had enough for six teams of six." Rose paused, and then continued. "We have thirty-six people willing to link after we prove that the link isn't driving us mad or anything, and a few more that don't want to link to a team, but will work support for us. I did have to promise to take care of them until the war is over though."

James only had one more question for her. "Why are we meeting way up here? Couldn't you find someplace else to meet?"

"Probably, but we need a meeting hall where all the houses can go, and one that is big enough for us all to meet at the same time. Professor Dumbledore said we could use this room, and it has another large advantage. It has another room that only has one door. I thought we could hide that door from anyone that is not one of us and use it for those things we're going to need." Rose's voice dropped a notch, and she was looking at the floor. "Is this ok James?"

"Sister mine, it's more than ok. You are a genius." James matched his words by sweeping Rose off her feet in a hug. Setting her down again he turned to the waiting students. "I assume Rose and Melissa have filled you in on what we're going to be doing here." He watched the crowd at they nodded or murmured an affirmative. "Good. Those of you who are going to link, can start watching the eight of us. We've done the link, and you'll be able to tell. If none of you change your mind, you can link next week." James blinked as the crowd's movement showed him the last person he would have expected here. "Mercy, what are you going to do?"

"I'm going to be the Mediwitch for Hydra." she said calmly. "Somebody has to patch you people up."

James raised an eyebrow. "Who is Hydra?"

The answer came from the doorway behind him. "We're Hydra."

James turned and his face went cold. "Daniel, I know what you and Prefect Moore are doing here, but what are these people doing here?" Standing there in the door with Daniel and the Prefect were four of the first year Slytherins. These four and five others had been the students that had hung Lisa in a frame on the first day of classes.

To James's surprise, Daniel and Mercy stood up for them. Mercy spoke first. "James, remember what I told you about the cliques in Slytherin? Well, that was one of the things those cliques made them do. The others did agree with it, and think it was funny, but these four didn't." She took a deep breath and continued softly. "Plus, these four and Prefect Grey were the only Slytherins that did not torment me while I was in their house."

Daniel spoke up with her. "I've been spending a bit of time with them, and I'm going to try to link with them since I didn't get in the first link. Hydra will be Sonya Gebbs, myself and these three, plus Prefect Grey."

James looked around. "It appears that you've all been thinking about this. I assume all the teams have names?"

Rose spoke up again. Yes, each team chose their own name, and we discussed the name we'd like to have for the whole group, if you and Tiffany don't mind."

James cocked his head. "Tiffany and I? Shall I assume that the rest of Chimera knows about this already?"

Rose blushed. "Well, I wanted to have as much done as I could before dropping it on you."

"So, who are we? The whifflebats, or what?" James grinned at the confusion in the crowd, as they tried to figure out what a whifflebats was.

Rose had the groups line up in the teams they would be in. "Hydra you know already. Sonya is going to lead them for now." Sonya Gebbs was a thin girl with light brown hair and matching eyes. James stared at her, and she met his eyes. Most of the first years avoided looking directly at James after the Crabbe killing as the fight was becoming known.

Mercy was the next one, and she was the leader of the support elements, the medics, intelligence, and general helpers that would not be openly fighting. They had named their team Phoenix.

The Dragon team was the only one made of a mix of houses. Debra Valentine of Ravenclaw led three Ravenclaws and three Hufflepuffs.

Ron Stone, a fifth year Ravenclaw led the Ravenclaw house team, which was called Sphinx.

Zachary Moore, the younger brother of Prefect Moore led the Hufflepuff team called Unicorn.

Griffon was the first team of Gryffindors, led by Emma's oldest brother Arthur Weasley.

There was also a Pegasus team from Gryffindor, led by Connor McCloud, a Scotsman with a thick accent.

James looked at the teams and back at Rose and Melissa. "Do you vouch for them all?"

The two girls nodded quietly. James stared at them for a minute, and asked Rose what name they had wanted. She told him, and he turned to the group. "Welcome to Manticore, people."